FOR LEADERS WHO HAVE BUILT SOMETHING REAL AND ARE DECIDING WHAT DESERVES THEIR ATTENTION NOW.
Advisory
I work with founders, owners and executives when the decisions in front of them are consequential, interconnected, and difficult to think through alone.
Most leaders have smart people around them. Employees. Partners. Advisors. Friends. Family.
What they do not always have is an independent perspective with no stake in a particular answer.
That is where I come in.
“Before one particularly difficult client conversation, she helped me reframe my entire approach before I walked in. It changed the outcome completely. She sees what is actually driving an issue very quickly, and that changes how you approach it.
The way I now think about operating at a higher level, both with clients and within my own business, comes directly from working with her.”
Who This Is For
My best clients have already proven they can build something. Often more than one thing.
Success has created options.
The question may be whether to grow, restructure, bring in leadership, open another market, build a second business, say yes to an opportunity, or finally say no to one.
Sometimes the harder question is about your own role.
What do you still want to own?
What are you carrying because you can?
What would the business need in order to depend on you differently?
What do you want your life to make room for next?
More than one path may work.
The question is which future is worth building and what each path will require.
“Kate is one of the people I trust most when I need to talk through a complicated business issue. She sees the big picture, understands the realities of running, marketing, and scaling a design firm, and has the rare ability to be three steps ahead of everyone at all times.
When the shit hits the fan, you want Kate O’Hara on speed dial.”
How We Work Together
A four-week engagement built around one consequential decision, problem or inflection point.
Sometimes the work is understanding what is actually creating the problem. Other times it is examining a decision from several angles: the opportunities, tradeoffs, what each path requires, and what it means for both the business and your life.
The goal is to move from stuck, uncertain or overwhelmed to a clearer understanding of what is happening and a considered path forward.
Three private sessions over four weeks.
Strategic Intensive
For broader questions and periods of change that need more than a single decision.
Private Advisory gives us time not only to decide what to do, but to put it into motion, see what it changes, and address the questions that emerge along the way.
The work might begin with organizational structure, leadership, growth, your role in the business, or the relationship between the business you have built and the life you want it to support. We stay with the primary issue while making room for the consequential questions that surface along the way.
The goal is meaningful change: clearer decisions, stronger leadership, more ownership across the organization, better use of your attention, or a business that depends on you differently.
Available as a six- or twelve-month engagement. We meet twice in the first month and monthly thereafter, with direct access between sessions.
Private Advisory
A HEALTHY BUSINESS CREATES MORE CHOICES FOR YOUR LIFE THAN IT TAKES AWAY.
For Brands & Organizations
Designers are not simply an audience to reach. They are business owners, buyers, specifiers, employers, decision-makers and partners.
I work with home and design brands and organizations that want a more sophisticated understanding of where designers fit within their business: how they make decisions, what earns their attention, what creates trust, and where a brand’s assumptions may be getting in the way.
The work may begin inside an executive or leadership retreat, a facilitated conversation, or a focused strategy engagement. I bring the perspective of someone who has spent nearly two decades on the designer side of the industry and who is willing to say clearly what a team may need to hear.
The goal is practical: a clearer understanding of the designer’s role in your ecosystem and a more intelligent strategy for how to reach, serve and build relationships with them.
For some organizations, the work may continue as ongoing advisory with senior leaders.
