Decision Stress-Test™
Pressure-test one strategic decision.
From €4,500ctrl+love
A global network for better decisions.
Powered by reality.
AI reveals patterns. People decide what matters.
Try the Decision ColliderInstrument No. 001
Decision Collider
Should we launch this product now?
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OBSERVE
Collect reality signals.
CUSTOMER
FINANCE
LEGAL
BRAND
OPERATIONS
THE MISSING SEAT
Decision
Reality signals enter the decision.
Synthetic personas
The synthetic minds inside the Room.
Always inside the Room. Never asleep. Each one represents a specialised way of thinking, not a human member of the network.
01
Maya Elise Harper
Emotional Truth
Finds what people are buying beneath the brief.
- Function
- Reframes the decision around the human need underneath the stated brief.
Simon Cross
Contrarian Pressure
Challenges the answer the room agreed on too early.
- Function
- Applies constructive skepticism before the market does it less politely.
Nick Deckman
Commercial Realism
Sees the cost of being wrong.
- Function
- Tests whether the recommendation can survive budget, timing and commercial reality.
Lexi Arden
Cultural Friction
Spots what others miss.
- Function
- Reads the cultural risk, memory and meaning surrounding the decision.
Akiko Hayashi
Consequence
Looks beyond the next decision.
- Function
- Keeps the room honest about second-order effects, unintended consequences and future regret.
Adrian Mbeki
Reality Stress
Tests what survives outside the room.
- Function
- Pushes the idea against operational pressure, customer behavior and messy reality.
The Customer
The Missing Chair
Would anyone outside this room care enough to act?
- Function
- Pulls the room back to the person who has to choose, pay for, use or ignore the thing.
Charles Whitmore
Executive Judgment
Clarifies the real decision, the stakes and what success must look like.
- Function
- Clarifies the real decision, the stakes and what success must look like.
Clare Mercer
Synthesis & Governance
Separates evidence from assumptions.
- Function
- Ensures the Room reaches a coherent recommendation rather than a collection of opinions.
Judy Law
Legal Exposure
Identifies legal, ethical and regulatory risks before they become expensive.
- Function
- Identifies legal, ethical and regulatory risks before they become expensive.
Grace Holloway
Reputation
Protects long-term trust, legitimacy and public confidence.
- Function
- Protects long-term trust, legitimacy and public confidence.
Brigitte Brussels
Institutional Systems
Brings the perspective of governments, regulators and large institutions.
- Function
- Brings the perspective of governments, regulators and large institutions.
Sandra Soskic
Execution Reality
Asks whether the recommendation can be produced, delivered and maintained.
- Function
- Asks whether the recommendation can be produced, delivered and maintained.
Vera Elise Hartmann
Historical Memory
Recognizes patterns that have appeared before.
- Function
- Reminds the Room what history is trying to teach.
Wade Ellison
Unfinished Intent
Detects the questions nobody has fully asked yet.
- Function
- Surfaces emotional signals and unfinished thinking before they disappear.
Johan Cruyff
Simple Truth
Leaves the Room with the observation that makes the pattern obvious.
- Function
- Leaves the Room with the observation that makes the pattern obvious.
Human Network
A growing intelligence network for decisions that cross reality.
Ambassadors form the wider room. Embassies are the permanent local signal: trusted creative leaders who help ideas arrive with cultural nuance, relationships and human judgment.
9people
9countries
9cities
10embassies
Nadia Al-MardiniCreative Ambassador / Berlin, Germany
Shun IwaiCreative Ambassador / Tokyo, Japan
Sung Wook “Tayl” ChungCreative Ambassador / Seoul, South Korea
Mats UtbergCreative Ambassador / Stockholm, Sweden
Jorge VirgósCreative Ambassador / Valencia, Spain
José Ricardo Monteiro (JR)Creative Ambassador / Lisbon, Portugal
Christophe PernaudetCreative Ambassador / Paris, France
Umberto BartoliniCreative Ambassador / Milan / Rome, Italy
FlipCreative Ambassador / Stateless, Everywhere
market-entry realitycultural translationleadership pressureproduct consequenceinstitutional memoryirreversible decisions
Every important decision deserves the right room.
Products
Three ways to engage the Room.
Three entry points, each built around a decision that needs pressure before commitment.
pressure dossier
Decision Stress-Test™
- What it is
- A focused Room for one important decision before it becomes expensive.
- When you need it
- Before a board recommendation, market launch, investment choice or strategic commitment.
- What you receive
- A Decision Record with the pressure applied, tensions surfaced and the reframed question.
- What changes
- The team leaves with sharper direction, visible risk and a next action.
- Starting point
- From €4,500
On-Call Room™
- What it is
- An available decision room for executives who need pressure before committing.
- When you need it
- When senior teams face recurring decisions and need a trusted outside Room on call.
- What you receive
- A continuing decision rhythm, rapid pressure sessions and documented recommendations.
- What changes
- Fewer protected assumptions. Faster contact with the real question.
- Starting point
- Ongoing partnership
Kill or Scale™
- What it is
- A decisive Room for initiatives that should either receive force or be stopped.
- When you need it
- When a venture, campaign or internal bet has enough momentum to become costly.
- What you receive
- A structured verdict on what to protect, what to redesign and what to stop.
- What changes
- Energy moves toward the work that deserves it.
- Starting point
- Scoped to the decision
Engagements
Commercial clarity, institutional form.
Every engagement creates pressure before commitment: selected perspectives, a written record and a sharper decision.
On-Call Room™
Continuous decision support.
Monthly engagementKill or Scale™
Pressure-test ventures before serious investment.
Custom engagementNo dashboards. No generic workshop theatre. Every engagement ends with a documented Decision Record.
A few things that changed inside the Room.
Nobody wanted a comfy chair.They wanted their lives back.
The brief entered as a product question. It left as a question about independence.
See what the Room surfacedThey came in asking how to reach younger people.Age wasn’t the problem. Predictability was.
Client confidentialThe inefficiency was there for a reason.
What looked like resistance to change turned out to be people quietly protecting something the new system had forgotten.
Client confidentialArtifact 001
Confidence should feel heavy.
Founder
Built for the moment before certainty becomes expensive.
ctrl+love is most useful before consensus hardens, before the wrong question becomes expensive and before leadership mistakes more information for clarity.
Founder
Poppe van Pelt
Thirty years helping organisations make decisions taught me that most expensive mistakes were not caused by a lack of intelligence. They happened because nobody challenged certainty early enough. ctrl+love exists to change that.Poppe van Pelt is an ADCN Hall of Fame creative director and the founder of ctrl+love.
He began his career at TBWA before co-founding Selmore, which he helped build into one of the Netherlands’ leading independent creative agencies. Over the course of his career, Poppe has worked with ambitious international brands and served as Lead Creative Director for Apple in the Netherlands and Belgium.
At ctrl+love, he brings together an international network of experienced creative and strategic leaders. They help organisations challenge assumptions, expose blind spots and make sharper decisions before reality makes them expensive.
After more than 30 years in advertising, Poppe remains driven by the same belief: technology changes, markets change and organisations change—but a powerful idea still begins with understanding people.
The Constitution
ARTICLE I
Reality always gets the final vote.
The Room exists because internal confidence is not evidence. It is only a decision waiting to meet the world.
Read Article I ->