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Viability & Feasibility
Independent assessment of whether a project or business stands up — the case stress-tested before capital is committed.
Devil's Advocates provides financial, management, and governance services to business owners and managers — testing the plan, then helping build it.
One who argues against a proposal — not as a committed opponent, but to test it: identifying and challenging the flaws in an assessment, plan, or strategy, and exposing it to thorough examination.
Historically, the official appointed by the Roman Catholic Church to argue against a proposed canonization — probing the case before it could be accepted.
We collaborate with founders and management — contributing the skills and discipline to plan, finance, and implement projects and businesses. Engagements are delivered under consulting and contractual arrangements.
Independent assessment of whether a project or business stands up — the case stress-tested before capital is committed.
Business plans, investor materials, forecasts, and complex multi-entity financial models that tie strategy to numbers.
Structuring and sourcing of equity and debt, and the materials and relationships needed to secure it.
Negotiation and drafting of joint ventures, term sheets, partnership, lease, and transaction documents — including Indigenous-partnered structures.
Hands-on management and administration: governance, financial reporting, regulatory compliance, and execution.
Advisory for distressed or transitioning businesses — drawing on decades of insolvency and restructuring practice.
Our experience spans many sectors, with particular depth in four:
Real estate development and accommodations.
Treatment, wastewater treatment, and bottling.
Land-based aquaculture and aquaponics.
Renewable energy, and oil and gas.
Devil's Advocates is the practice through which Ron Evans delivers his financial, management, and governance services — both to the ventures he leads and to external clients, under consulting and contractual arrangements. Formed in 2003, it specializes in developing projects and building businesses, from concept and planning through financing, implementation, and operation.
He qualified as a Chartered Accountant in New Zealand in 1988 and practised under the designation for nearly two decades, bringing more than thirty-five years' experience across corporate insolvency and restructuring, financial reporting, complex financial modelling, and business advisory at leading international accounting firms in New Zealand and Canada — followed by two decades as a founder-owner and director of operating ventures.
That arc — a career that began in the study of why businesses fail and matured into building businesses meant to last — produces an unusual combination: the pattern recognition of someone who has seen how ventures come apart, applied to the disciplined construction of ones built to endure.
For nearly two decades — since around 2007, well before it became commonplace — Devil's Advocates has delivered its services remotely: effective, responsive, and without compromise. Video conferencing, email, messaging, and mobile technology mean the great majority of advisory, modelling, drafting, and management work is performed seamlessly from a well-appointed home office, with face-to-face meetings and site visits wherever they add value.