Strategy & AI Consulting · Minneapolis · Remote
Board-ready strategy and AI work for large companies.
Most strategy work stalls in the same place: the mandate is broad, the data sits in six systems, and the answer has to survive a room of executives who will find the weakest assumption in it. That gap is where I work.
Send a written briefHow engagements workReplies usually go out within one business day. · eric@ericwpalmer.com
How can I help you?
Engagements are scoped so you know what you are getting before it starts, and so the deliverable is something a decision actually gets made from.
The question scoped, the evidence assembled, the argument built — and a deck your C-suite or board can decide on.
Where it pays, where it will not, what has to be true first, and what it costs to keep running. Written plainly enough to be argued with.
Where it is useful, the working system behind the answer — delivered and operating.
Selected work
Strategy, M&A strategy and AI work. Each case says what the situation was, what I did and what came of it, with the kind of deliverable it produced shown beside it.
StrategyGlobal strategy taken to a board, a governance and risk framework, and a multi-year growth plan.
M&A strategyTarget screening, the strategic inputs behind diligence, deal structure, and integration planned as part of the deal.
AIA research platform I built that runs 25+ AI agents over 60+ data sources, with daily dashboards and one-page reports.
Fixed-scope work
Four offers with a set scope, a set turnaround and a fixed fee agreed before anything starts. Each one has an illustrative sample you can read first.
Whether a consumer category is worth entering, growing in or leaving, sized and argued.
A fast, sourced read on a food, beverage or consumer brand before a letter of intent.
The integration plan for a signed deal, written before Day 1, with owners and dates.
A broad question turned into a recommendation a board can decide on.
Focus areas
Two kinds of work where the background is most direct.
Category, innovation and portfolio questions for consumer goods teams, from someone who spent eight years inside Kraft Heinz.
The first 100 days plan for a signed deal, written before Day 1, with owners, dates and a way to track the synergies.
About
Over twelve years producing work that had to hold up in front of people who were deciding something. Five years at PIMCO building the analysis and client reporting behind allocation decisions for Fortune 500 institutions. Nearly eight at Kraft Heinz, the last two leading Global Strategy — owning what went to the board across growth, governance and risk, M&A and new categories.
How to start
Everything up to the start of the work happens in writing, so you can move it forward on your own schedule.
- Send the question in writing
A few lines is enough: the decision, the deadline, and who has to be convinced. No call is needed to get started.
- Scoping questions come back
Replies usually go out within one business day. If the work is not something I should take, you hear that too, with a pointer somewhere better.
- A one-page proposal
The scope, what arrives, the timeline and a fixed fee, in writing. The work starts once it is agreed.