— Founder / CEO & Board Advisory

The decisions that define your organization's future
deserve more than a transactional advisor.

CEO succession. Board composition. Founder transitions. Strategic pivots under pressure. These are the moments that determine whether an organization fulfills its potential or squanders it. We provide independent, experienced counsel for boards and founders navigating these inflection points — with candor, confidentiality, and 30 years of perspective.

— Who this is for

We work with leaders who cannot afford to get this wrong.

This practice is designed for a specific situation: you are facing a decision that is consequential enough to warrant genuine independent counsel — not a vendor relationship, not a process engagement, but a trusted advisor who has seen this kind of decision play out across hundreds of organizations and will tell you what they actually think.

Boards of Directors

CEO succession planning, director recruitment, governance advisory, and independent counsel on leadership risk at the board level.

CEOs & Senior Executives

Strategic counsel on team composition, succession, organizational design, and the leadership decisions that directly determine organizational outcomes.

Founders & Owner-Operators

Advisory for founders navigating transition from operational to strategic roles — including succession planning, professionalization of the leadership team, and preparing the organization for its next stage.

Private Equity Sponsors

Leadership advisory for portfolio companies at critical growth or transition stages — pre-close assessment, post-acquisition team building, and performance intervention when leadership is the limiting factor.

— What we advise on

The inflection points where independent counsel matters most.

CEO succession planning

A structured, objective process for identifying and developing internal successors — or managing an external search when internal options are not adequate. We help boards and CEOs approach succession as a strategic process, not a reactive one.

Board composition & effectiveness

Independent counsel on board structure, the specific capabilities and perspectives your board needs at this stage of the organization's development, and director recruitment when gaps exist. We can also assess existing board effectiveness and governance practices.

Founder transition

Confidential advisory for founders moving from operational leadership to board roles, ownership without management responsibility, or full exit. These transitions are organizationally complex and emotionally charged — and they benefit from an advisor who has navigated them before.

Strategic inflection point counsel

Independent advisory during M&A, restructuring, leadership crisis, or major strategic pivots — when the decisions being made will determine the organization's trajectory for years, and the people inside the organization have competing interests and incomplete perspective.

Senior team assessment & composition

Objective evaluation of the leadership team you have against the demands of the strategy you are pursuing — identifying gaps, misalignments, and the specific changes in team composition that would produce the highest return.

— How we work

A small number of clients. Complete attention. Real candor.

We take on a deliberately limited number of advisory relationships at any time. This is not a scalable product line. It is a relationship — and relationships of the kind that actually change organizational outcomes require genuine investment of attention, judgment, and trust.

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Independent perspective

We have no stake in any particular outcome except the right one for your organization. We will tell you what we think — including things that are inconvenient.

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Complete confidentiality

Advisory relationships of this kind require absolute discretion. Every engagement is strictly confidential — with principals, not teams.

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30 years of pattern recognition

We have seen these situations — succession crises, founder conflicts, board dysfunction, leadership failures — across hundreds of organizations. That experience is what you are engaging.

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Senior-led, always

Rob Andrews and senior partners conduct these engagements directly. There is no delegation to junior staff in relationships of this consequence.

— Published perspective

Rob Andrews in NACD Directorship Magazine.

Rob Andrews is published in Directorship Magazine — the flagship publication of the National Association of Corporate Directors, read by board members and governance professionals across the country. His article on execution risk and board visibility speaks directly to the governance challenges boards face when management reporting obscures organizational strain before it becomes a crisis.

NACD

NACD Directorship Magazine — National Association of Corporate Directors

Why Execution Risk Fails to Show Up in Board Materials

Boards seldom face surprises in strategy, but execution often stuns them. This article explains why execution risk remains hidden in board materials — and the specific questions directors can ask to surface it before it becomes a crisis.

Download Article →

Rob Andrews is the only advisor we have ever worked with who told us what we needed to hear rather than what we wanted to hear. That candor, at the moment we needed it most, was worth more than any search engagement we have ever conducted.

— [Board Chair / CEO Name, Company] — replace with actual client testimonial

— Start a conversation

The right advisory relationship begins with an honest conversation.

Tell us what you're facing. We'll tell you candidly whether and how we can help — and what that engagement would look like.

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