Hierarchy relation taxonomy

How Kernel labels each account's position in its corporate tree.

Every account in your CRM sits somewhere in a corporate tree. The Hierarchy Relation field tells you where. It's a single label, picked from eight positions, that reps can sort on, route with, and roll up against.

The taxonomy works the same way across Company, Government, and Education trees. You don't need to learn a separate model for each.

Hierarchy positions

Every account gets exactly one label. When more than one could apply, the highest priority wins.

Priority	Label	Company tree	Government tree	Education tree
1	GUP · Global Ultimate Parent	Topmost HoldCo or Operating entity	National Government, IGO	Education System, standalone HEI
2	GOP · Global Operating Parent	Topmost Operating entity (when GUP is HoldCo)	—	—
3	DUP · Domestic Ultimate Parent	Highest entity in its country	National Government below an IGO	—
4	DOP · Domestic Operating Parent	Highest Operating entity in its country	—	—
5	Subsidiary	Operating subsidiary	Agency, Subnational, Local, Judiciary	Higher-Ed Institution, Pre-tertiary school, Research Institute
6	Business Unit	Brand or division inside an Operating entity	—	Academic Unit
7	Establishment	Branch, office, or site	—	—
8	Standalone	Independent company	Independent agency	Independent institution

Government and Education don't split Operating vs HoldCo. That distinction only exists for companies, so GOP and DOP are skipped for those trees. The classifier jumps straight from GUP to DUP to Subsidiary.

Precedence rules

• Highest priority label wins. An account that qualifies for both GUP and GOP gets GUP.

• GUP is always the topmost entity in the tree, even when that entity is Operating (in which case GOP doesn't fire).

• GOP only exists when the GUP is a HoldCo and the tree is a company tree.

• DUP only appears when the highest entity in its country differs from the GUP or GOP.

• DOP only exists when the DUP is a HoldCo and the tree is a company tree.

• For Government and Education, the classifier skips GOP and DOP entirely.

• Ties are broken deterministically so the same tree always produces the same labels.

How classification works

For every account, Kernel walks down this checklist and stops at the first match.

1. Is this the top of the tree? If yes, it's the GUP.

2. Is this an Operating company sitting below a HoldCo GUP? GOP.

3. Is this the highest account in its country, and that country is different from the GUP's country? DUP.

4. Is this an Operating company sitting below a HoldCo DUP? DOP.

5. Is this a physical site (branch, office, plant)? Establishment.

6. Is this a brand or academic unit that isn't a legal entity? Business Unit.

7. Otherwise, Subsidiary.

If the account has no parent in the tree at all, it's a Standalone.

Edge cases

Case	What happens
No parent account anywhere in the tree	Labelled Standalone
The account is the top of its own tree	Immediate GUP, no further walk needed
No country on the account	Can't be DUP or DOP, falls through to Subsidiary
Two accounts tied for "highest in country"	Deterministic tiebreak, same result every run
A Government or Education account is tagged HoldCo or Operating	Treated as Operating equivalent, GOP and DOP still skipped
Sub-category we don't recognise	Defaults to Subsidiary

Examples

Each node shows the entity's sub-category and country, then the label the classifier assigns. Shading by position: darker sage for the GUP, lighter sage for other parent positions, white for leaf positions.

PE-backed insurance group

The canonical complex case. Every commercial position fires somewhere in this tree.

Markerstudy Insurance Services is a Subsidiary, not a DUP, because the GOP is already in GB. DUP requires a different country from the GUP or GOP. Markerstudy Spain has a single Operating entity in its country, so it takes DUP (priority 3) ahead of DOP (priority 4).

Swiss multinational with Operating at the top

When the topmost entity is already Operating, GUP and GOP collapse into one.

GOP doesn't fire because the GUP is already Operating. Swiss children fall to Subsidiary because they share a country with the GUP.

Global bank with HoldCo and cross-border operations

Every commercial position in one tree.

Brand inside an operating company

Business Units aren't legal entities. They contract through a parent.

Jell-O is a brand, not a separate company. It takes the Business Unit position.

US Federal Government

Multi-level government tree. Everything below the GUP is flat.

Government trees are flat below the GUP. Every descendant resolves to Subsidiary. To tell FDA apart from HHS from USG, walk the parent relationship rather than relying on the label alone.

EU, member state, subnational, local

DUP can fire for a government tree when an IGO sits on top.

The EU has no single country, so it's the GUP by default. France is the highest entity in FR, and FR is different from the GUP's country, so France takes DUP.

UK Government with devolved administrations

Scottish Government is subnational, but country is recorded at the sovereign level (GB), so DUP doesn't fire. Same for Welsh and NI governments.

University of California System

Education tree where Business Unit fires via Academic Unit.

K-12 district

Standalones

An account with no parent and no children is a Standalone.

Account	Classification	Why
Shopify Inc. (Operating · CA)	Standalone	No parent, tree of one
Harvard University (Higher-Ed Institution · US)	Standalone	Independent, no system parent
Federal Reserve (Agency · US)	Standalone	Only when imported without a USG parent. Otherwise Subsidiary as in the US Federal example.