Membership · Change · Advocacy
Leadership for membership and mission-driven organizations at the crossing.
I help them stay true to the people they serve as they change. Aviation is where I proved it.
What I do
The organizations I take on are at an inflection: the old model is failing and the new one is not built yet. The work is the same each time.
Find the structural flaw
Read who the organization is actually hearing, and where that has pulled it away from the people it was built for.
Build the replacement
Design the operating model, the coalition, and the case the next chapter will run on.
Lead people across
Move a resistant organization from the old way to the new one, with the board and the members still with it.
The thinking, in the open
Traverse
The working site for my thinking on membership organizations, leading change, and who an organization is really for. The flagship paper, the frameworks, what I read, and the weekly Brief.
In the field
I take on a small number of engagements at a time, on the problems I write about: membership and operating strategy, change leadership, and the technology shifts reshaping both.
Membership and operating strategy
Helping associations read where their value and their members are really going, and rebuild the model around it.
Change leadership
Standing with leadership teams through the hard middle of a transition, from the decision to the adoption.
A technology venture build
Advising a growth-stage firm on building a technical venture, under ETL Advisory.
Teaching and the open build
With the GW Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and the weekly ETL Aviation Intelligence Brief.
The record
It started with broad experience in aviation. From there I served on the Joint Staff, served at the White House, and advised leaders across government, nonprofits, and business as a management consultant before founding ETL Advisory. Different institutions, one discipline: see what is breaking, build what comes next, and bring people across.