Phased. Fixed fee. A statement of work, not a retainer.
The retainer tiers are built for founders. A strategy office, a corporate development team, or a commerce leadership group inside a large company buys differently: a defined scope, a fee per phase, a calendar, named deliverables, and a governance cadence, all under a master services agreement their procurement team has already seen. Enterprise Engagements are written that way. What does not change is the seat: me, directly, on the work, with named associates where a phase needs more hands than one.
The DTC playbook, rendered in enterprise constraints.
Direct clients on this side have included Nike, Coca-Cola, Hallmark, and P&G. Separately, Deloitte and Accenture engagement teams have brought me onto their own client projects when the commerce work needed someone who had run the thing being recommended; those clients are under NDA and are not listed here. Before any of that I was an early Shopify employee who helped build the Partner Program, and I have worked with Shopify product teams since as the merchant perspective they use to shape product and positioning. The value is a practitioner's lens rather than a systems integrator's or a strategy house's, because most of the problems enterprise commerce is facing now are ones the DTC and Shopify ecosystem already solved, at smaller scale and with less money. The work is translation: the few moves that recover ground, in the order that survives a steering committee.
Brands and retailers
Category defence against DTC challengers, the move from channel-specific to unified commerce, a platform migration or architecture modernisation with a vendor shortlist that needs a practitioner's questions asked of it.
Software companies
Commerce and channel partnership strategy for platforms and SaaS companies selling to merchants: which partners, on what economics, with what deal structures, and what the merchant actually experiences at the join.
Corporate development
An operator's screen on commerce technology and consumer brand acquisitions, build-versus-buy-versus-partner decisions on the stack, and the first hundred days after close, where most of the value is won or lost.
Each phase is its own scope, its own fee, and its own decision to continue.
The next phase is scoped in the readout of the last one, so nobody commits to a year of work on the strength of a proposal. Most engagements are Phase 1 and Phase 2, then a step down to a retainer. Fees are fixed per phase in US dollars and stated as ranges because interview count, data scope, and whether an associate is staffed move the number; the exact figure is in the statement of work before anything starts.
Assessment
Current-state assessment, 10 to 15 stakeholder interviews, the benchmark set against the DTC and platform ecosystem, an options paper with a recommendation, and an executive readout. This is The Read at enterprise scale.
Strategy & Design
The strategy document itself, a financial model behind it, a 12 to 18 month roadmap with owners and dependencies, and a board-ready deck. Billed by milestone. Usually staffed with one named associate.
Mobilise
Fixed-price modules rather than time: partner or vendor selection, operating-model design, a first-hundred-days plan, and leadership or board workshops. Bought one at a time, as the roadmap calls for them.
Sustain
The Advisory or Partner retainer, positioned here as the step down rather than the entry, for the leadership team carrying the roadmap through the following year.
What you keep
The deliverables are yours: the documents, the model, the deck, the roadmap. What stays with me is the method, the benchmark set, and the working files behind the comparisons, the same split as The Read.
What it is not
I am not a systems integrator and do not build or run the platform, and I am not an investment bank and do not run your process. The work decides what those firms have to work with, and asks them the questions a practitioner would.
A cadence your sponsor can put in a deck.
- SponsorOne named executive sponsor on your side who owns the decision the work informs, and one named day-to-day lead who owns access. Both are in the statement of work by name.
- WeeklyA 60-minute working session with the day-to-day lead and whoever owns the problem in front of us that week. Interviews, data walkthroughs, and draft reviews sit around it.
- FortnightlyA steering-committee check-in with the sponsor: progress against the plan, emerging findings, decisions needed, risks. One page, sent the day before.
- DependenciesThe statement of work lists what I need from you and by when: data access, interview availability, a systems walkthrough. When a dependency slips, the calendar moves day for day and you hear it in writing, the same rule as The Read.
- AcceptanceEach deliverable has stated acceptance criteria. You have five business days to accept or return it with consolidated comments; one revision round is in the fee. Milestone invoices are raised on acceptance.
- ChangeScope moves by written change order with a fee and calendar impact, agreed before the work happens. Nothing gets absorbed into the fee, and nothing shows up on an invoice that was not agreed first.
- ReadoutEvery phase ends in a live executive readout. The last page of the deliverable is the recommendation for what, if anything, comes next, with a scope and a fee attached.
Written for procurement, so the scoping call can be about the work.
Ranges are 2026 US market figures from published engagement data and procurement benchmarks, stated at the level a large company actually pays. The comparison that matters is whether the person doing the work has run a business like the one being advised, and whether you will be talking to that person.
Questions procurement and sponsors ask.
Send the MSA. I'll send the scope.
Every enterprise engagement starts with a 30-minute scoping call with the sponsor: what decision the work informs, who needs to be interviewed, what data exists, and when the answer is needed. A Phase 1 statement of work follows within five business days.