When a brand challenge needs more than the usual answers.
I join agency teams when the strategic question is unusually difficult, important or unfamiliar — for a pitch, a project, or an account that needs fresh momentum.
Sometimes the job is to help win the work. Sometimes it is to solve the hard brief. Sometimes it is to help a strong client relationship move again.
Three reasons agencies bring me in
Win the work
When the pitch needs a stronger strategic point of view.
I work with the team to understand what the client is really asking, find the strategic angle and build the thinking that gives the creative work somewhere powerful to go.
I can come in early, when the pitch is still taking shape, or later when the team has plenty of material but needs a sharper story holding it together.
This can include
- Strategic framing
- Audience and cultural insight
- Positioning
- Brand platform development
- Proposition development
- Narrative and pitch strategy
- Creative briefing
- Pitch story and argument
The objective is not more strategy. It is a stronger reason to choose your agency.
Solve the hard brief
When the work is yours, but the obvious answers aren’t enough.
Some briefs resist the normal process.
The research points in several directions. The category language feels interchangeable. The client knows something is wrong but cannot quite articulate it. Or the team has produced good answers, but none of them creates movement.
That is usually where I am most useful.
I help the team get underneath the stated problem, identify the assumptions holding it in place and reframe the question until a more useful strategic choice becomes possible.
This can include
- Brand positioning
- Brand architecture and portfolio strategy
- Customer and audience strategy
- Proposition development
- Research synthesis
- Brand narrative
- Naming strategy
- Innovation and growth questions
- Complex strategic problem-solving
The job is often not to find a better answer to the brief. It is to find the better question underneath it.
Strengthen the account
When an important client relationship needs fresh strategic momentum.
Not every strategic need justifies another full-time hire.
Sometimes an account needs senior thinking for a particular challenge. Sometimes the strategy team is stretched. Sometimes a long-standing client relationship needs someone new in the room to help everyone see the problem differently.
I can join for a single intervention or stay close to the account when senior strategic thinking is needed intermittently.
This can include
- Strategic reviews
- Brand and portfolio evolution
- Senior client workshops
- Stakeholder alignment
- New opportunity framing
- Innovation questions
- Creative strategy support
- Ongoing senior counsel
More senior strategic capacity when you need it, without adding permanent overhead.
Inside your team means exactly that.
I work as part of the team you already have.
That might mean sitting beside your strategists and creatives, joining client conversations, helping an account lead make sense of a difficult problem, or working quietly behind the scenes.
I can be visible to the client or not. Either way, I am there to strengthen the agency’s thinking — not build a parallel relationship with its client.
Your client stays yours. Your team gets stronger.
You are not buying extra hands.
You are buying senior judgement.
The value is not that I can produce another deck, framework or workshop. It is that 25 years of brand strategy lets me recognise patterns quickly, question the assumptions everyone else has learned to live with, and help the team make a clearer strategic choice.
Use me when adding more process is unlikely to improve the answer.
More thinking, not more machinery.
What I can bring to the problem
Brand strategy
Positioning
Brand platforms
Purpose and promise
Value propositions
Brand narrative
Portfolio and architecture
Brand architecture
Portfolio strategy
Masterbrand and sub-brand relationships
Naming systems
Offer architecture
Audience and insight
Audience strategy
Customer segmentation
Cultural analysis
Research synthesis
Behavioural insight
Innovation and growth
Opportunity framing
New proposition development
Category reframing
Innovation strategy
Growth questions
Verbal strategy
Naming
Narrative
Messaging architecture
Tone of voice
Creative briefing
Strategic facilitation
Leadership workshops
Client workshops
Stakeholder alignment
Strategic reviews
Decision-making sessions
And what I’m not
I’m not a substitute for your agency team.
I do not build a competing client relationship, assemble another layer of account management or turn a strategic question into a six-month consulting programme by default.
I come in where senior thinking can make the biggest difference, work with the people already responsible for the business, and stay only as long as I am useful.
How agencies use me
A pitch
Bring me in for the strategic phase of a pitch — from framing the problem through to the final argument.
A project
Bring me into a defined client assignment where the team needs additional senior strategic capability.
An account
Keep me close to an important account when strategic questions appear intermittently and do not justify permanent specialist resource.
How fees work
Every engagement is different enough that fixed packages rarely make sense.
I quote per project after an initial conversation about the brief, the team, the role you need me to play and the amount of involvement required.
Questions agencies usually ask
Can you work behind the scenes?
Yes. Some agencies introduce me directly to the client; others keep me entirely behind the scenes. Either works.
Can we include you in a pitch team?
Yes. I can be named as part of the team and provide a CV, biography or credentials in whatever format the proposal requires.
Can you join client meetings?
Yes. I regularly work directly with client leadership, strategy, marketing and communications teams as part of the agency team.
Do you only work on brand positioning?
No. Positioning is one part of the work. I am most useful when the problem is strategically ambiguous — which can involve audiences, portfolios, propositions, innovation, narrative, architecture or broader business questions.
Do you work directly with companies?
Occasionally, yes. But most of my work is done with and through agencies.
Can you stay involved after the strategy is finished?
Yes, when useful. I can stay close during creative development, client alignment or later strategic decisions without turning the engagement into a permanent role.
How quickly can you join a project?
That depends on availability and the scope of the brief. The fastest way to find out is to send me the situation and timing.
25 years of difficult brand challenges
More than 200 brands and organisations across 19 countries, working both directly and through agency partners.
Much of the work sits under someone else’s name. That is usually how I prefer it.
Selected experience includes
Diageo · Holcim · Lonza · Carvana · KingSett Capital · Papara · Doğuş Group · Sanko Holding · NATO · European Commission
Got a brand challenge that won’t resolve itself?
You don’t need a finished brief. Tell me about the brand challenge and where the team is stuck.