Advisory
For design firm owners who've built something real and are ready to build it better.
I work with design firm owners at the moments when the right decision matters most and the right conversation is hardest to find.
Most founders have people around them. Employees. Partners. Friends. Industry peers. What they don’t always have is someone who has been where they are, understands the weight of what they’re carrying, and is willing to ask the questions nobody else knows to ask or is willing to.
Think of it as having a board of directors, but built for a founder-led firm that doesn’t have one yet. One experienced advisor. No agenda except yours. Someone who has run the same kind of business you’re running and can tell you what she actually sees.
Part strategy. Part perspective. Part hard conversation.
The business problem is usually where the conversation starts but not always where it ends. The goal is to help you make a better decision than you would have made alone.
Who This Is For
My best clients have already proven they can build something. Usually more than one thing. The challenge isn’t growth anymore. The challenge is deciding what deserves their time now.
You might be in the right place if:
You’ve built a successful firm and, along the way, created other opportunities too. A second business. A product line. Investments. Partnerships. A platform. Now you’re trying to decide how those pieces fit into the next chapter of your life and career.
The business that got you here still relies heavily on you, even as your attention is being pulled toward new opportunities. You know the next version of what you've built will require a different structure than the one that created it.
You can see several paths forward, and more than one of them could work. The question is no longer whether you can succeed. The question is which future is worth building and how to get there without sacrificing what you've already created.
How We Work Together
Strategic Intensive
A four to six week engagement built for founders facing a specific high-stakes decision or inflection point. Three sessions of ninety minutes to two hours each.
The first session is rarely just about the problem. Before we get to what the right decision is, we look at what you actually want, personally and professionally, because the right answer depends entirely on that.
From there we work through the decision itself, examine what you might not be seeing, and map out what comes next once a direction is chosen.
Clients often tell me that a single question from the first session stayed with them long after the conversation ended.
The Strategic Intensive is also built into every longer engagement.
Six Month Engagement
Begins with a Strategic Intensive to map the territory: your goals, the immediate challenges, and where to focus first.
From there we move to a monthly ninety minute session and a mid-month check-in, formal or informal depending on what you need.
This engagement is for founders who know something significant needs to change and want a experienced advisor alongside them while they figure out what that change should be.
Twelve Month Engagement
Some founders come to this work with one significant decision in front of them. Others arrive knowing that the decisions never really stop. The business keeps growing, the stakes keep rising, and the questions keep getting harder.
The twelve month engagement is for both.
Maybe you’re in the middle of a year that feels like it’s asking more of you than any year before it. Maybe you’re opening a second location, restructuring your team, stepping back from the day-to-day, or trying to figure out how to build a business that doesn’t depend entirely on you. Maybe you already know the work ahead isn’t going to fit inside a single quarter.
This engagement works the same way as the six month, a Strategic Intensive to start, then monthly sessions with a mid-month check-in, but the additional time allows us to move through more than one chapter. The first decision leads to the next one. The plan you made in month two looks different by month seven.
Most clients who begin at six months continue here.
