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Partner: Embedded Strategic Advisory

A senior thought leadership strategist as a standing member of your extended team. Ongoing counsel to keep the system sharp, the strategy current and the program connected to business outcomes.

thought leadership advisory retainer

The Strategy Doesn’t End When the Blueprint Is Delivered

Building a thought leadership operating system is a significant step. But markets shift. Leadership priorities evolve. New competitors emerge. Without ongoing strategic stewardship, even the best-designed programs drift, losing focus, relevance or connection to the business goals they were built to serve.


Partner is our advisory retainer for organizations that have a defined thought leadership strategy and want senior, ongoing counsel to keep it operating at its highest level. This is not content production support. It’s strategic leadership—the kind that ensures your thought leadership function continues to earn trust, build visibility, and drive outcomes over time.

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For Organizations That Want Strategic Leadership

Partner is the right fit for organizations that:


  • Have a defined thought leadership strategy (typically through our Signature engagement) and want sustained senior oversight
  • Need ongoing strategic counsel for 2–3 senior executives building public visibility
  • Want quality, consistency, and strategic alignment without hiring a full-time thought leadership lead
  • Operate in a regulated environment where editorial governance and compliance alignment require ongoing attention
  • Want their thought leadership program to evolve with the business, not stagnate after the initial build


This engagement is designed for organizations that understand the difference between producing more content and maintaining a strategic function. Partner provides the latter.

Ongoing Advisory, Structured for Strategic Impact

Partner provides active senior stewardship across six dimensions of your thought leadership program.

Monthly Strategic Advisory

Executive Visibility Counsel (Up to 3 Leaders)

Executive Visibility Counsel (Up to 3 Leaders)

A dedicated advisory session each month focused on priorities, decisions and direction. This is where we assess what’s working, recalibrate what isn’t, and ensure the program stays aligned to business objectives and market conditions.

Executive Visibility Counsel (Up to 3 Leaders)

Executive Visibility Counsel (Up to 3 Leaders)

Executive Visibility Counsel (Up to 3 Leaders)

Ongoing positioning guidance for senior leaders: refining voice, reviewing messaging, identifying visibility opportunities, and ensuring each executive’s thought leadership remains credible, differentiated and aligned to the organizational narrative.

Editorial Strategy and Prioritization

Executive Visibility Counsel (Up to 3 Leaders)

Quarterly Strategy Review and Recalibration

Monthly guidance on what to develop, when to publish, and how to sequence thought leadership output for maximum strategic impact. This keeps the editorial calendar driven by strategy rather than convenience or reactivity.

Quarterly Strategy Review and Recalibration

Quarterly Strategy Review and Recalibration

Quarterly Strategy Review and Recalibration

A structured review each quarter to adjust themes, update the point of view, and ensure the program evolves alongside your business, your market, and your competitive landscape. This is how thought leadership stays relevant instead of going stale.

Asynchronous Strategic Review

Quarterly Strategy Review and Recalibration

Two Internal Workshops Per Year

Between formal advisory sessions, we review ideas, narratives, and executive content for strategic alignment in real time. Think of this as having a senior strategist on call to ensure nothing goes to market that doesn’t reinforce your positioning.

Two Internal Workshops Per Year

Quarterly Strategy Review and Recalibration

Two Internal Workshops Per Year

Facilitated sessions with your broader team or subject matter experts, designed to re-energize the program, surface new ideas and maintain cross-functional alignment.

Important: What This Engagement Does Not Include

Partner is a strategic advisory engagement. To set expectations clearly:


  • It is not content production. We don’t write your blog posts, ghostwrite articles, or manage your social channels. We guide the strategy that makes those efforts effective.
  • It is not PR or media relations. We don’t pitch journalists or book podcast appearances. We build the positioning and messaging that makes media interest organic.
  • It is not a substitute for internal capacity. We design and steward the system. Your team (or your content partners) execute within it.


This distinction matters because it’s the difference between hiring a strategist and hiring a vendor. Partner is the former.

Investment

Partner advisory support ranges from $4,500 to $6,000 per month, depending on scope. A 3-month minimum commitment applies.


This reflects the cost of having a senior thought leadership strategist embedded in your operations on an ongoing basis—a fraction of what a full-time hire at this level would cost, with the strategic depth and industry specialization that a generalist hire typically can’t provide.


The investment protects your organization’s thought leadership program from the two most common failure modes: stagnation after the initial build and slow drift from strategic positioning into unfocused content production.

Partner Works Best When the System Is Already in Place

This engagement is designed to steward and optimize an existing thought leadership strategy,  not build one from scratch. If your organization hasn’t yet established its positioning, executive voice architecture, and editorial governance framework, we recommend starting with Signature.


Signature builds the operating system. Partner keeps it running at its highest level.

Start with the Signature Program

Ready for Sustained Strategic Leadership?

If your organization has the strategy but needs a senior partner to keep it sharp, relevant and connected to outcomes, let’s talk about what Partner looks like for your firm.

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