Direction that holds when conditions don't.
Strategic decision support for boards and executive teams. The plan you can hand your board, and the strategy that keeps working once conditions change.
A plan can document your priorities. It can't tell you what to do when the conditions underneath it change. Your strategy is the thinking that tells you what matters, what you're choosing, and what to do when circumstances shift.
When funding shifts, new priorities emerge, or the board sees the situation differently. You need something live to navigate from.
This is where Strategic Orientation comes in. We are the partner who builds your plan alongside you and the live decision system underneath it.
You leave with both halves: the plan you can hand your board or funder, and the choices, trade-offs, and decision system that keep your next step visible, no matter what moves around you.
When this fits
Something's usually already shifted by the time people book this call. The strategy no longer quite fits, decisions aren't resolving, or the organisation needs to move faster than its current direction can keep up with:
- The board and executive team are working from different assumptions
- Everything feels urgent, and priorities are competing for the same attention
- Funding, policy, or regulation is moving faster than your plan can absorb
- Decisions are being made but they're not moving the organisation forward
- A new leadership team is forming around a direction that isn't settled yet
- Strategy exists on paper, but it doesn't show up in how decisions get made when the pressure is on
What Strategic Orientation is
Whatever shape the work takes — a board offsite, a facilitated workshop series, or 1:1 strategic advisory + coaching — we work through the strategic problem with the people who need to make the decisions.
You leave with the strategy, and the capability to run the process yourself next time.
The work builds your ability to read what is changing, make the choices that matter, and keep your strategy relevant as conditions change.
Built for purpose-driven and public-good organisations: boards, chief executives, and senior leaders responsible for decisions that shape the organisation.
Led by someone with 15 years in senior and executive roles, including taking an organisation through nationwide reform, a financial turnaround and a governance crisis without losing its independence or its people.
How it works
Every engagement moves through the same five stages, slowing the moment, widening the view, and landing the next step.
What you leave with
A strategy that holds when conditions change. And the capability to keep thinking strategically when they do.
- clear anchors and choices
- explicit trade-offs
- board/team alignment
- capability gaps and requirements
- decision authority
- review rhythm
- plan you can put in front of the board/funder
- a repeatable process your team can run without us
No ongoing dependency. No advice that disappears when we leave the room. The capability stays with you.
What leaders said
"Instead of assuming the future would unfold the way we expect, Maren pushed us to explore a range of possibilities. That distinction alone made our planning feel more robust."
Executive Director
"This feels different. This feels like distributed ownership, like something that I can be proud of, something that I can take into my mahi every day.”
Senior Leader
How the work can scale
Strategic work can start with a focused coaching engagement, or scale to workshops and embedded support.
Not sure which one fits? Start with a free Orientation Call and we'll work it out together.
Strategic advisory + coaching
A senior leader, CE, ED, or small leadership team who needs structure, challenge, and momentum to develop and deliver strategy, while building their capability to run the strategic thinking themselves.
NZ$5,500 + GST · ~10 hours over 2–3 months
Over 2–3 months, we work through all five steps together in coached sessions, documenting each one as we go.
You finish with a complete strategic orientation: the plan, the anchors and choices underneath it, the capability you need to deliver it, who decides what, and the rhythm for keeping it current.
Workshops
For board and executive alignment, when the direction needs deciding together in the room.
Priced by scope · five workshops, run as one sequence
Five facilitated workshops, one per stage, run as a single sequence: each one building on the last.
That's deliberate. The five steps build on one another. Sold as the complete arc, not standalone sessions, so the thinking holds together.
Workshops + Coaching
For organisations that need both people aligned, and the person carrying it forward properly resourced.
Priced by scope · five workshops plus 1:1 coaching for your internal lead
The full workshop sequence, plus 1:1 coaching for whoever's carrying strategy internally, running in the gaps between sessions.
Embedded Partnership
For organisations in sustained volatility, where the work doesn't stop at a workshop series.
Priced by scope
Facilitation, coaching, environmental scanning, and ongoing availability, scoped to what the work actually needs.
Coming Soon: Online Strategy Sessions
Want the method without the engagement? Join a monthly online Strategy Session and work through one step of the Strategic Orientation method at a time.
You'll work through the thinking with others, leave with templates and tools, and apply the work to your own organisation before the next one.
NZ$200 + GST per session