Esse Quam Videri
To be, rather than to seem
Esse Quam Videri · To be, rather than to seem
Every engagement answers the same question: what does this brand stand for, and how does it stay distinct while the rest of the category floods the feed with slop? Some clients want a senior second read on the big calls, and some want a leader in the building. The judgment is the same at every depth.
Senior counsel for the founder, CEO or CMO, on retainer. I sit in on the calls where brand decisions get made: positioning, agency work, launches, and where AI belongs in the operation. It's a few hours a month, plus a phone that gets answered.
Excavate and Distill, run end to end: positioning audit, competitive teardown, narrative architecture, voice and the non-negotiables. You get a brand book your team will use and a deck that travels.
An intensive day with the leadership team. We pressure-test where the brand stands, where it could stand, and the one sentence the whole organization can defend in a hallway. You walk out with a deck and a working document the team can move on the next morning.
Phase four as a standalone build: custom AI workflows for content, asset governance, competitive monitoring and creative briefing, set up to follow your brand standards. Your brand work moves at AI speed, and the authorship stays in-house.
When the brand needs a leader in the building. Two to four days a week on retainer, I run planning, lead agency relationships, sit on the leadership team, and stay close enough to protect the position as it goes to market. It's the advisory work with my hands on the wheel.
Every engagement starts with a free thirty-minute conversation. I want to hear what you're trying to build, what you've already tried, and where things feel stuck. You'll get a sense of how I work and whether my read on the situation is useful to you.
If the fit is right, I send a one-page proposal with scope, timeline, fee, and the deliverable. From there we pick the right way in, whether that's advisory, a project, a workshop, a build or an embedded seat, based on where the brand is and what it needs next.
People often ask whether I take fractional CMO roles. I do, selectively, for premium, luxury, and wine and spirits brands where the brand itself is the asset.
I take a small number of engagements at any given time so the work gets the attention it needs. If it's not the right fit on my side, I'll happily tell you who I'd send you to instead.
Thirty minutes, free, no slides. It's the fastest way to find out whether we should work together.
Give my brand soul →