A practical, individualized engagement
What we do for our clients
John helps experienced leaders clarify where they are, decide where they want to go, present their value clearly, and navigate each stage of a career transition with preparation and judgment.
Direction and positioning
Build the foundation for a focused transition.
- Clarify the client’s current career situation.
Assess employment status, career history, financial runway, geographic constraints, family considerations, motivations, frustrations, and immediate risks.
- Define the desired outcome and success criteria.
Establish the target level, functions, industries, company types, compensation range, work arrangement, timeline, and whether the client seeks employment, consulting, board work, entrepreneurship, or a portfolio career.
- Conduct a career-history and achievement inventory.
Build a detailed record of roles, responsibilities, P&L scope, leadership scope, measurable business results, transformations led, crisis experience, major deals, and professional differentiators. This is the factual foundation for resumes, LinkedIn, interviews, and negotiations.
- Identify marketable skills, capabilities, and differentiators.
Translate the client’s background into marketplace-relevant strengths: functional expertise, industry knowledge, leadership capabilities, operating experience, revenue or margin impact, technology fluency, and executive presence.
- Identify skill, knowledge, credential, and positioning gaps.
Determine which gaps materially limit the client’s target options and distinguish between gaps that require training, reframing of existing experience, a credential, current-market exposure, or a change in target role.
- Develop and prioritize career alternatives.
Explore several credible paths rather than prematurely selecting a single job title. For senior clients, alternatives may include a comparable executive operating role, a step-up role, advisory or fractional leadership work, consulting, board service, private-equity portfolio-company leadership, or an interim executive assignment.
- Research the market for each priority alternative.
Assess demand, hiring patterns, likely employers, industry conditions, compensation norms, geographic realities, likely obstacles, and the client’s competitive position.
- Select a primary target and secondary options.
Create a practical hierarchy: the preferred target, adjacent targets, and fallback or bridge options. This keeps the search focused while preserving resilience.
- Create an individualized job-search or career-transition plan.
Define target companies, target decision-makers, networking priorities, recruiter strategy, application strategy, weekly activity goals, tracking methods, and review cadence.
- Develop the client’s professional positioning and executive narrative.
Create a clear answer to: “Who are you, what problems do you solve, what evidence proves it, and what role should an employer or client consider you for?”
- Create or revise the comprehensive master resume and achievement inventory.
This should be a detailed working document, not necessarily the version sent to employers. It captures the full factual record and supports later customization.
- Create highly focused resumes for the selected career alternatives.
Each version should emphasize the specific experience, outcomes, keywords, and leadership narrative relevant to a target role or market segment.
- Optimize LinkedIn and other professional-brand materials.
For most executive searches, this should include the LinkedIn headline, About section, experience entries, featured content, recommendations, profile photo guidance, and consistency with resume positioning.
- Prepare supporting materials where appropriate.
Depending on the client, these may include an executive biography, leadership profile, board résumé, consulting profile, deal sheet, operating portfolio, 30-60-90-day plan, or a concise value-proposition document.
Search, interviews, and transition
Navigate the process with preparation and judgment.
- Develop networking and outreach strategy.
Help the client identify and approach former colleagues, industry contacts, board members, investors, executive recruiters, professional associations, and target-company insiders.
- Provide guidance on recruiter engagement and executive-search process management.
Teach the client how retained search works, how to communicate with recruiters, how to avoid appearing indiscriminate, and how to maintain professional follow-up.
- Assist the client in expanding and recalibrating alternatives as the search develops.
Review feedback from the market and modify targets, messaging, search channels, geographic assumptions, compensation expectations, or interim options when evidence warrants it.
- Manage references and professional reputation.
Identify appropriate references, obtain permission, brief them on the client’s targets, and prepare the client for informal back-channel referencing, which is especially important at senior levels.
- Provide phone, video, and initial-screening interview training.
Focus on concise positioning, credibility, compensation questions, career transitions, handling apparent weaknesses, and generating enough interest to advance.
- Provide in-person and executive-panel interview training.
Focus on executive presence, strategic thinking, leadership style, stakeholder management, culture fit, board or investor interaction, and substantive business discussion.
- Prepare the client before every significant interview.
Identify the interviewers, likely agenda, company context, specific objectives, relevant stories, difficult questions, potential objections, questions the client should ask, and desired next steps.
- Debrief after every interview and plan follow-up.
Capture what was learned, assess signals, refine messaging, decide on thank-you and follow-up communication, address objections, and prepare for the next stage.
- Prepare for executive assessment, case studies, presentations, and board interviews.
This is particularly useful for senior operating roles, private-equity-backed companies, and positions requiring presentations to a CEO, board, or investment committee.
- Analyze offers, total compensation, and risk.
Evaluate not only salary, but bonus structure, equity, long-term incentives, severance, benefits, relocation, restrictive covenants, change-in-control provisions, reporting relationships, authority, performance expectations, and business risk.
- Assist with offer strategy and compensation negotiation.
Help the client decide what to negotiate, how to sequence issues, when to use leverage, and how to preserve the relationship while protecting important interests.
- Assist with employment agreements and executive-contract negotiation when appropriate.
For senior P&L, C-suite, or high-risk roles, this may involve organizing business issues for review by qualified employment counsel: duties, authority, term, termination, severance, equity, clawbacks, noncompete/non-solicit provisions, indemnification, D&O coverage, and change-in-control protections.
- Support resignation, transition, and onboarding.
Help the client resign professionally, manage communications, prepare a first-90-days plan, clarify expectations with the new manager or board, and establish early credibility.
- Interview preparation for all Interviews included for 365 days from the beginning of our work together.
A private first step