Founder & Team Advisory

Not every board member works out. Some stop showing up. Others undermine decisions or create division. A few turn out to be fundamentally misaligned with the mission or incapable of handling the role. And occasionally, someone who was once valuable becomes a liability as the organization evolves. Most founders know…

Most founders assemble advisory boards for the wrong reasons. They want credibility by association. They want impressive names on the website. They want to signal to investors that serious people believe in the company. And they end up with a list of people who ghost meetings, don’t respond to emails,…

You send updates. No one responds. You schedule calls. Half the board doesn’t show up. You ask for feedback and get silence or vague encouragement that feels more like politeness than engagement. Your stakeholders haven’t formally walked away, but they’re not really present either. This pattern is common, especially in…

Fake invoices don’t arrive with a warning label. They show up in your inbox looking legitimate, professionally formatted, and often timed perfectly to slip past distracted finance teams. By the time you realize something’s wrong, the money is gone and the trail has gone cold. Vendor fraud is one of…

Every experienced leader eventually faces it: a missed signal during due diligence that later becomes a liability. Sometimes it’s a concealed relationship. Sometimes it’s a partner with undisclosed debt, a founder with political baggage, or a “compliant” supplier that turns out to be an operational risk. Whatever the oversight, what…

When a threat surfaces—whether personal, political, or operational—team leaders on the ground often absorb the initial shock. Their instinct is to alert headquarters, seek cover, or step back entirely. But premature escalation can trigger an overreaction from donors, executives, or boards. The result is a double crisis: a rattled team…

When evaluating a startup, much of the focus is placed on the founder. This is understandable. The founder sets the tone, articulates the vision, and often acts as the public face of the company. But in fragile markets or sensitive sectors, the founder is rarely acting alone. Capital often arrives…

Deciding to wind down a project, business, or operation is difficult. Communicating that decision to stakeholders is harder. When handled poorly, these conversations cause reputational damage, emotional backlash, or even legal exposure. But when done with structure and respect, notification can preserve trust, limit risk, and allow for future engagement—even…

Surprise visits are one of the few tools leaders can use to cut through polished updates, staged reporting, and unchallenged routines. But the objective is often misunderstood. These visits are not meant to expose individuals or punish teams. Their purpose is to reassert expectations, reestablish accountability, and observe what happens…

In fragile markets or politically sensitive environments, the lines of authority can shift overnight. Permits are issued and revoked. New actors claim control. Field staff receive conflicting orders. In these moments, acting too quickly—or too confidently—can trigger legal exposure, political backlash, or reputational damage. A deliberate pause, not a rushed…

In emerging or unfamiliar markets, many international organizations turn to local advertising agencies to execute outreach, mobilization, or visibility campaigns. When the partnership functions well, it delivers cultural resonance, logistical efficiency, and measurable impact. But over time, even the most promising local agency relationships can experience drift—subtle shifts in focus,…

Titles, reporting lines, and organizational charts often paint a clean picture of governance. But in complex or fragile markets, these formal structures rarely reflect operational reality. Power flows along lines of trust, control, and narrative—not just hierarchy. Nowhere is this clearer than in the advertising and communications process. If you…

When a project becomes reputationally, politically, or ethically compromised, leadership faces a critical decision: stay, fix, or exit. In fragile markets, even the appearance of contamination—from allegations, internal misconduct, or partner exposure—can be destabilizing. If left unmanaged, it spreads beyond the project itself, infecting donor confidence, staff morale, and organizational…

Unauthorized redirection of client funds is not just a breach of protocol. It’s a threat to the credibility of your operation. Whether the act was malicious, opportunistic, or a result of unclear systems, your response must prioritize containment, trust repair, and legal exposure management. Especially in fragile or cross-border environments,…

Donor priorities—whether tied to governance, inclusion, sustainability, or transparency—are not just ideals. They shape how funding is allocated, how outcomes are measured, and how partnerships are judged. Yet in many settings, especially in fragile or transitional environments, some founders learn to mimic these priorities without embracing them. They speak the…

Crisis is inevitable in frontier markets and fragile economies. Supply chains break, political winds shift, funding cycles stall, and key personnel exit. For founders, these pressures can trigger more than strategic challenges: they can provoke emotional responses that ripple outward. A crisis doesn’t need to derail a project, but when…

When internal misuse of funds is uncovered—whether through fraud, mismanagement, or error—the immediate focus often turns to donors, auditors, or internal controls. But vendors are part of the risk environment too. If they’ve been underpaid, left waiting, or dragged into a dispute they didn’t cause, the damage goes beyond invoices.…

In high-pressure environments, founders are expected to be visionaries, decision-makers, and stabilizers. But when crisis hits, even the most composed founder can spiral—emotionally, operationally, or reputationally. Early intervention by boards, advisors, or key partners is not interference. It is risk mitigation. In fragile ecosystems, founder behavior during crisis determines whether…

Most organizations discover financial misconduct the same way: something doesn’t add up, someone finally asks the right question, and suddenly the floor falls out. What follows is usually panic, blame, and a scramble to contain damage before stakeholders find out. But the discovery of a breach doesn’t have to be…

In fragile, politically sensitive, or low-transparency markets, local legal counsel is often your first—and sometimes only—line of defense. But just because they aren’t raising concerns doesn’t mean your position is secure. In many cases, legal counsel fails not by making a catastrophic error, but by quietly opting out of their…

Founders often appear steady during early-stage growth. But when real crisis hits—whether legal, operational, or reputational—the pressure exposes new fault lines. Panic sets in quickly. Public silence gives way to frantic outreach. Decisions start stacking without coordination. In fragile environments or donor-facing operations, this isn’t just disruptive. It’s dangerous. Stakeholders…