The Collective
Executive Membership
You have reached the point where what you know is worth more than what you do.
Twenty or thirty years of it — how large organizations decide, what kills a deal in the last two weeks, which relationships are real and which ones only look real. Some members are retired. Some are semi-retired, some are between roles, some are building their own practice. In every case the experience and the network still have value, and the market has no structure for using them.
The Collective is that structure.
What happens
We meet Thursday mornings for an hour, virtually.
Most weeks a founder-led firm presents. Thirty or more come through in a year — research businesses, analytics companies, consultancies, agencies, most between $5M and $75M, most built by the person presenting. They are good at what they do and stuck on something they can’t see. Usually they cannot explain themselves to a buyer at your level, and nobody has told them so.
You tell them. Not with notes on the deck — with what you would have thought if they had walked into your office with that pitch. During the hour we want the room engaged and direct. Afterward, members who attended submit written feedback against a fixed set of questions, and that becomes the report the firm receives.
The other weeks are discussion. We bring the data we’ve collected across sessions, work through what’s moving in the industry and where the openings are, and go back to firms that presented earlier to see what happened.
Nobody attends every week. Members come when the firm presenting is in their range or the topic is worth the hour, and skip the rest. A calendar goes out ahead.
What members get out of it
You see the market again. Thirty firms a year explaining what they are building, plus what the room knows, is a better read on your sector than anything you can subscribe to. That signal fades after leaving a seat.
You get seen. Members appear in what I publish — the newsletter, and a podcast that is a conversation with a member about how growth happens inside firms like these. It gives you something current to send to a prospect, a board, or a search partner. Membership is a present role.
Work comes through. Commercial work is delivered under Bossey, and when an engagement needs more capability, members are the first place I look. Not every engagement does. The members I know well are the ones I call.
The room itself. Nobody sells in it — not to you, not to the firms, not to each other.
Introductions
Some of these firms deserve to meet people you know.
That rarely happens in the session. It happens weeks later, in a different conversation, when the firm comes to mind because it fits what is being discussed. It cannot be scheduled, so there is no quota and nobody tracks your count.
When one converts, you receive ten percent of first-year fees.
Deciding not to introduce someone is equally useful. The room’s credibility runs on both.
What it asks
An hour on the Thursdays you choose, and written feedback when you attend. No dues, no equity, no minimum.
Who's in the room
David Albert
Michelle Hart
Natasha Stevens
Jennifer Connelly
Gary Schanzer
Scott Aaron
Ian Menchen
Joe Beier
Tom Neri
Aidan Leahy
Jonathan Grover
If this fits
Deep experience in one sector rather than a little in several. A network you have used in the last two years. And enough judgment to hold an introduction back when the fit isn’t there.
Tell me about your background and where your network runs.