How representation works
What we actually do, in the order we do it.
Vague process reads as no process. Here is the whole sequence, what happens at each step, and roughly how long it takes. Timings are typical rather than promised, and the work rarely runs in a straight line.
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Step 01
Conversation
One call, about an hour
We talk about what you want to be known for and whether we are the right people to help. You will hear a direct answer, including no.
There is no fee for this, and no obligation on either side afterwards. Fees, term, and what representation would actually involve for you are discussed here.
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Step 02
Assessment and positioning
Two to three weeks
We define the specific expertise you will be known for. Not your job title, and not your whole career. One clear thing, narrow enough that a program director can picture you on their stage.
Then we name the rooms that matter for it, and the honest distance between where your profile is today and where it needs to be for those rooms.
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Step 03
Materials
Three to four weeks
A speaker one-sheet, a board bio, a topic list, headshot direction, and writing samples. These are the documents a conference organizer, a nominating committee, or a board chair actually asks to see.
Most executives arrive without them, or with a resume standing in for them. A resume is not a speaker one-sheet, and committees can tell.
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Step 04
Introductions and submissions
Ongoing, first activity usually inside a month
We put you in front of the programs, boards, conferences, publications and committees where you fit. Some of that is a direct introduction to a person we know. Some of it is a formal submission to a call for speakers, a nominating process, or an editor.
You see where we are sending you before we send it. We do not spray your name across a list.
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Step 05
Preparation
As engagements arise
Board readiness, talk development, interview and panel preparation, and editorial support on anything you publish under your name.
A first board seat and a first keynote both go better with rehearsal. This is the part clients tend to underestimate.
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Step 06
Ongoing representation
For the length of the engagement
We keep working the pipeline, negotiate terms where a fee is involved, and adjust your positioning as the profile grows. What worked for a first panel is rarely what gets you a board seat two years later.
You get a regular account of what we have sent, what came back, and what we are changing.
Fees
This is a paid service, and here is the shape of it.
Two parts. A retainer, billed monthly or annually, covers positioning, materials, and the ongoing work of putting you in front of people. A success fee applies to placements that pay, calculated as a percentage of the fee we negotiate for you.
Unpaid placements carry no success fee. A large share of good advisory seats and university engagements pay nothing, or pay in equity, and we do not want an incentive to steer you away from them.
We discuss specific numbers in the first conversation, once we know what you are asking us to do. There is no charge for that call.
Term and exit
Leaving should be easy. That is the point.
Building a public profile takes longer than a quarter, so engagements are written for a meaningful stretch rather than month to month. Inside that term you can end the engagement with notice, in writing, without giving a reason.
Work already in flight is honored. If we introduced you somewhere before you left and a paid engagement comes out of it afterwards, the success fee on that specific placement still applies. Nothing else follows you.
An agency confident in its work does not need a lock-in to keep clients.
What we do not promise
The honest limits.
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We do not guarantee a board seat, a stage, a byline, or a fee. Anyone who does is either selling something else or has not been in this business long.
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We do not sell seats. A seat that can be bought is worth what you paid for it and nothing more.
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We turn away more people than we take, and we say no in the first conversation rather than six months in.
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We do not control the decision. A program committee, an editor, or a board chair makes the call, and they say no to good people constantly. What we control is whether you are in front of them, prepared, with the right materials.
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We do not write your point of view for you. We can sharpen it, position it, and get it in front of the right audience. We cannot supply it, and a client without one is a client we should have declined.
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We do not place people onto boards we ourselves run or advise, and no relationship you have with us elsewhere buys you a place in line. Read how we handle conflicts.
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We do not promise speed. Some clients see activity inside a month. Others spend a season getting the positioning right first, and that is usually the better trade.
If this sounds like the right shape, apply.
Applying is free. We reply to everyone within five business days, including the people we cannot help.
Apply for representation