I say the thing in the room
You are not short of people who agree with you. The value of an outside advisor is entirely in their willingness to be uncomfortable, and I intend to earn that.
About
I have sat in the chair
Advice about executive decisions is worth more from someone who has had to make them with incomplete information and a board waiting.
Elena Vasquez
I ran a listed industrial group for six years. Before that I led its largest division through a restructuring that removed a quarter of the cost base without losing the two plants that mattered. Both experiences taught me the same thing from opposite directions: the decision is rarely the hard part.
The hard part is the eighteen months afterwards, when the organisation is asked to behave differently and every existing structure quietly resists. That is the work I now do with other chief executives.
I take four to six engagements a year. That constraint is deliberate: this work requires being close enough to see what is not said in the room, which is not possible across twenty accounts.
Background
- Chief Executive, listed industrial group (6 years)
- Divisional MD through restructuring (4 years)
- Non-executive director, three companies
- Faculty, INSEAD executive education
- MBA, INSEAD · BSc Engineering, Imperial College
How I work
I do not bring a team
No analysts, no associates, no leverage model. You engage me and you get me. It is a deliberate limit on how much work I can take.
Engagements end
Every engagement has a defined close. If we reach it and the work is genuinely unfinished, we say so honestly rather than drifting into a retainer.
The board is often the client
Sometimes the execution problem sits above the executive team. When it does, I will tell the chair — which is why some engagements are commissioned by the board directly.