Founder stopped responding to investor communications for months. We made contact without pressure, identified burnout and fear as root causes, and restored communication with sustainable reporting structure within one week. Read more.
Leadership crises don't announce themselves until they're already damaging operations. The executive everyone respects just showed up drunk to a client meeting. The founder who built everything just stopped caring. The employee you trusted most has been lying for months. These situations destroy organizations faster than any market shift. We stabilize quietly, before this becomes public disaster.
Silent emails. Missed board meetings. Performance that quietly degrades while everyone waits for it to improve. Then suddenly: urgent stakeholder calls, threatened resignations, and questions about whether the organization can survive without intervention.
Leadership crises announce themselves slowly, then all at once.
We're advisors who've managed the full spectrum. The founder who went from visionary to liability through untreated alcoholism. The executive whose personal crisis became an organizational one. The board relationship that fractured because no one knew how to name what was breaking.
We've guided removals that protected both the person and the organization. We've stabilized teams when founders couldn't show up. We've prevented exits that would have destroyed ventures, and facilitated exits that saved them.
That experience revealed something: most leadership crises aren't inevitable. They're the result of waiting too long to intervene, or intervening wrong.
The disengaged founder often just needs permission to step back. The struggling executive might need support, not termination. The fractured board relationship usually comes from mismatched expectations, not fundamental incompatibility.
Once you understand what's actually happening, you can navigate toward solutions that preserve relationships, protect the mission, and maintain stakeholder confidence.
We help you see past the symptoms to the actual problem. We guide interventions that repair instead of destroy. And we stay present through the hardest conversations so no one has to navigate crisis alone.
Who We Help: Founders, boards, and leadership teams navigating internal crises, performance breakdowns, or difficult transitions.
Typical Situations: Founder disengagement or burnout, executive misconduct, internal fraud, team fractures, leadership transitions that threaten continuity, or governance failures that risk stakeholder confidence.
Our Role: Stabilize operations discreetly, manage difficult conversations, coordinate across stakeholders, and guide transitions that protect both people and organizations. We don't replace leadership - we support it through crisis.
How We Work: Confidential assessment → Structured intervention → Quiet stabilization. We work directly with founders and boards, never publicly, always focused on preserving what can be saved.
Outcomes: Contained damage, preserved stakeholder relationships, successful transitions without scandal, and organizations that survive leadership crises intact.
How to Get in Touch: Fill out this form or contact us on Signal at pholus.01 for immediate, confidential support.
Same-day response for urgent situations.
From founder burnout to internal fraud, these situations demand immediate intervention before they become public disasters.
Your founder—previously engaged and reliable—has gone silent. Board meetings get rescheduled. Strategic decisions sit unmade. The team is starting to notice, and stakeholders are asking questions.
Maybe it's burnout. Maybe it's a personal crisis. Maybe they've mentally checked out but don't know how to say it. Whatever the cause, the silence is becoming an operational problem.
We help you assess what's actually happening behind the disengagement. We facilitate conversations that get to truth without triggering defensiveness. We help boards and co-founders determine whether this is temporary overwhelm that needs support, or permanent misalignment that needs transition.
We've managed founder re-engagement when the problem was fixable, and we've guided dignified exits when it wasn't. Either way, we help you make decisions before stakeholder confidence erodes completely.
This isn't about replacing the founder or forcing anyone out. It's about creating clarity when everyone's afraid to name what's breaking, and building pathways forward that protect both the person and the organization.
A key leader—someone your operation depends on—is struggling. Performance is declining. Behavior is erratic. The signs are visible but no one knows how to address them without making everything worse.
Maybe it's addiction. Maybe it's mental health. Maybe it's personal circumstances that have spiraled beyond their control. But the impact on operations is growing, and waiting for improvement isn't working.
We help leadership teams assess when support is appropriate and when removal is necessary. We guide interventions that protect the individual's dignity while safeguarding organizational stability. We coordinate discreetly with HR, legal, and boards to ensure transitions happen lawfully and without triggering broader team disruption.
We've managed situations where executives recovered and returned stronger. We've also managed situations where removal was the only option. In both cases, we helped organizations avoid the extremes: neither ignoring the problem until it explodes, nor overreacting in ways that create unnecessary damage.
This work requires discretion, empathy, and willingness to make hard calls. We bring all three.
You discovered that a trusted employee has been stealing, misrepresenting financials, or engaging in misconduct that puts the organization at risk. The evidence is there, but the path forward isn't clear.
You need to contain the damage before it spreads. You need to document everything properly for legal protection. You need to communicate with stakeholders without triggering panic. And you need to do all of this without the situation becoming public before you're ready.
We help you investigate discreetly, coordinate with legal counsel on evidence preservation, and manage terminations that minimize legal exposure. We guide stakeholder communication that maintains confidence while being truthful about what happened and what you're doing to prevent recurrence.
We've contained fraud that could have destroyed organizations, managed employee exits without labor disputes, and helped leadership teams restore internal trust after breaches. We know the difference between situations that require aggressive legal action and situations that require quiet resolution.
This isn't about punishment or blame. It's about protecting what you've built, preventing escalation, and making sure one person's misconduct doesn't define your organization's future.
Your founder is missing board meetings, or showing up unprepared. Board members are frustrated and starting to lose confidence. Communication has broken down, and the relationship that should be supportive has become adversarial.
Maybe expectations were never clear. Maybe the founder feels micromanaged and the board feels ignored. Maybe both sides are operating from fear and no one knows how to reset.
We step in as translators and alignment partners. We facilitate conversations that surface the real issues without blame. We help both sides clarify expectations, redesign governance structures that actually work, and rebuild trust before it's too late.
We've prevented board exits that would have destroyed funding relationships. We've helped founders re-engage with boards after periods of silence. We've redesigned meeting structures that turned confrontational sessions into productive strategy discussions.
This work isn't about taking sides. It's about helping both parties remember they're working toward the same goal, and building systems that support collaboration instead of friction.
A critical team member just left—through resignation, termination, or circumstance—and suddenly it's clear how dependent operations were on that one person. Functions are breaking. Knowledge is missing. The team is scrambling and stakeholders are noticing.
Maybe it was a CFO whose financial practices weren't documented. Maybe it was a department head who held relationships together through personal credibility. Maybe it was a founder whose departure left a vacuum no one's prepared to fill.
We help you stabilize operations immediately while building longer-term solutions. We assess what knowledge needs to be recovered, what functions need restructuring, and what communication stakeholders need to maintain confidence.
We've managed transitions after sudden departures, deaths, and terminations. We know how to triage what's urgent versus what can wait, and how to prevent one departure from cascading into broader organizational instability.
This isn't about replacing the person who left. It's about building systems that can survive key departures, and helping your team regain confidence when fragility gets exposed.
Let's Assess Your Situation Privately
Not every crisis requires full intervention. Some need perspective, others need immediate action. We'll help you understand what you're facing and what response makes sense.
All inquiries handled confidentially. Response within one business day.
Crisis follows patterns. Once you recognize the pattern, you can navigate it without destroying what you've built.
Every situation above feels isolating when you're living it. You think you're the only board dealing with a silent founder. The only leadership team managing executive alcoholism. You're not. These situations happen constantly. What's rare is having advisors who've contained them before—quietly, successfully, and without destroying what you've built. Here's how we navigate your crisis:
The first 48 hours determine whether you stabilize quietly or face public disaster. We assess what's actually happening, identify immediate escalation risks, and establish containment protocols.
We conduct confidential situation analysis to understand the full scope—who knows what, what evidence exists, what immediate risks require containment. We identify which stakeholders need immediate management versus those who can wait, and establish decision-making protocols so crisis response doesn't create additional chaos. We help you see past emotion and panic to actual risk—what's salvageable versus what requires immediate removal—and design preliminary intervention strategy that prevents damage from spreading.
This isn't about fixing everything immediately or finding perfect solutions. It's about seeing your situation clearly and making urgent decisions that prevent escalation. We help you understand true exposure when leaders often underestimate reputational risk and overestimate relationship durability, separate fixable problems from terminal situations, and establish whether you're managing with time or already in damage control.
Outcome: Clear understanding of crisis scope and immediate risks, preliminary stakeholder containment plan, realistic assessment of whether situation requires support or removal.
With immediate risks contained, we coordinate across the key parties who determine whether this stays private or becomes public. This phase focuses on alignment, documentation, and preventing well-intentioned actions from triggering escalation.
We coordinate discreetly with legal counsel on evidence preservation and documentation requirements, manage board or investor communication to maintain confidence without misrepresenting reality, and establish internal communication protocols that prevent speculation from spreading. We guide difficult conversations that surface truth without destroying relationships, help key stakeholders understand their roles without triggering power struggles, and implement operational safeguards that prevent further damage while permanent solutions develop.
This phase requires managing multiple parties who often have conflicting instincts—boards who want immediate action, legal counsel focused on liability protection, and founders who want time to fix things personally. We translate between these perspectives and keep everyone aligned on containment first, resolution second.
Outcome: Coordinated response across legal, board, and operational stakeholders; documented evidence trail that protects the organization; communication protocols that prevent premature disclosure or speculation.
With crisis contained and stakeholders aligned, we facilitate the decisions and interventions that restore stability. This is where support/removal determinations get made, transitions get executed, and organizational continuity gets protected.
We facilitate the conversations that others avoid—the founder who needs to hear they're no longer fit to lead, the board that needs to understand removal is the only option, or the executive who needs support rather than termination. We guide transition execution that protects both individuals and organizations, manage internal and external communication that maintains confidence during leadership changes, and coordinate across HR, legal, and operations to ensure interventions happen lawfully and completely.
This phase requires balancing speed with care. Move too slowly and stakeholder confidence erodes. Move too fast and you create legal exposure or destroy relationships that could have been preserved. We help you navigate that tension with clear milestones and decision points.
Outcome: Leadership transition executed (whether temporary stepping back, permanent removal, or structured support), stakeholder confidence maintained through transparent communication, operational continuity preserved during personnel changes.
Crisis resolution isn't just stopping damage—it's ensuring the next breakdown doesn't happen. Before disengaging, we help implement the structural changes that reduce future risk.
We design governance improvements that prevent similar crises—clearer decision rights, better oversight mechanisms, improved communication protocols. We establish succession planning or contingency procedures that reduce single-point-of-failure dependency. We help document lessons learned and institutional knowledge so organizational memory survives leadership transitions. And we ensure new leadership (whether internal promotions or external hires) has the support and structure needed to succeed.
This phase transforms crisis response into organizational strengthening. The fraud that got discovered leads to better financial controls. The founder transition creates clearer governance. The executive removal triggers improved HR oversight. We help you emerge more resilient, not just stabilized.
Outcome: Governance structures that reduce future crisis risk, documented processes that survive leadership changes, organizational confidence restored with clear path forward, leadership team operating independently without ongoing advisory dependence.
Get Clear on What's Actually Happening
Leadership crises feel overwhelming because you're too close to see patterns. We bring outside perspective that separates fixable problems from terminal situations, and guide decisions that stabilize instead of escalate.
We'll tell you honestly if we can help.
Discretion during crisis isn't optional. It's the difference between quiet resolution and public disaster.
Most advisors panic or move too slowly when founders implode or teams fracture. We've guided organizations through every scenario on this page and helped them emerge intact, often stronger. Experience that keeps leadership crises from becoming existential threats.
Our advisors have managed founder alcoholism that threatened organizational collapse, contained internal fraud that could have destroyed stakeholder trust, and guided boards through removing executives who had become liabilities. We've stabilized teams after sudden leadership departures and prevented founder disengagement from cascading into operational failure. This expertise comes from direct crisis management across multiple industries and markets, not academic study of leadership theory.
We understand the difference between founder burnout and founder sabotage, between misconduct that requires removal and struggles that need support. We coordinate seamlessly with boards, legal counsel, HR teams, and stakeholders without creating friction or slowing necessary action. Our team speaks English, Spanish, and Portuguese, and we've managed leadership crises across cultural contexts where governance expectations and intervention approaches vary significantly. We translate between stakeholders who operate from different frameworks.
Leadership crises compound daily. Disengaged founders don't suddenly re-engage without intervention. Team fractures widen until someone acts. We provide initial crisis assessment within 24 hours of contact. For situations requiring immediate response—a founder who's gone completely silent, misconduct just discovered, or board relationships at breaking point—we're available via Signal for same-day mobilization. Our engagements begin with rapid triage and immediate stabilization, not weeks of discovery.
We don't push founders out, take over board seats, or assume operational control. We work directly with existing leadership to restore stability and guide decisions that preserve what's been built. Founders remain founders. Boards remain governing bodies. We bring structure during chaos, facilitate conversations that others are afraid to have, and coordinate discreetly across stakeholders. Our role is advisory support through crisis, not permanent organizational restructuring. We strengthen leadership capacity, not replace it.
See how we've helped organizations navigate founder disengagement, executive misconduct, and team fractures without public disaster.
Note: All case studies are anonymized to protect client confidentiality. Details changed to prevent identification while preserving strategic lessons.
Founder stopped responding to investor communications for months. We made contact without pressure, identified burnout and fear as root causes, and restored communication with sustainable reporting structure within one week. Read more.
Employee was BCCing anonymous external address on confidential communications. We identified the breach, coordinated lawful termination, and implemented security protocols without labor complaints or staff panic. Read more.
Senior employee falsely accused colleague of theft. We investigated discreetly, vindicated the wrongly accused, managed accuser's exit, and promoted the cleared employee into the vacant senior role. Read more.
Leadership transitions either preserve what you've built or destroy it. The difference is almost always preparation and timing.
"After managing my own business collapse, coordinating crisis response across four continents, and helping organizations survive what should have been fatal breakdowns, I've learned this: leadership crises don't improve because you wait for them to. They escalate until someone intervenes with structure and experience. We're that intervention—for founders and teams who need it before stakeholders do."
We respond to all inquiries within one business day, sooner for urgent situations. Every conversation is confidential. We assess whether we can help before discussing any engagement terms.
Initial conversations focus on understanding your situation and determining if intervention makes sense. Some situations need immediate action. Others need perspective. We'll tell you which is which.
If your situation is actively escalating and can't wait for email response, contact us directly on Signal at pholus.01. We prioritize urgent requests and provide same-day assessment when timing is critical.
We specialize in leadership and team crises that threaten organizational stability. We don't handle every business challenge, and that's intentional. We're not the right fit if:
You need ongoing executive coaching or leadership development. We intervene during acute crises, not long-term capability building.
You're looking for HR policy development or general organizational consulting. We focus on urgent situations where relationships, trust, or continuity are actively breaking down.
You need legal representation or want someone to manage litigation strategy. We coordinate with your legal counsel and support crisis containment, but we're advisors, not attorneys.
You want someone to take over operations or replace leadership temporarily. We advise decision-makers and guide interventions, but we don't step into operational roles.
Your situation requires specialized technical expertise outside crisis management—like cybersecurity incident response, clinical mental health intervention, or forensic accounting. We can help you find appropriate specialists, but these aren't our core capabilities.