Private Strategic Counsel
Honest, unbiased counsel for the decisions only you can make.
The higher you climb, the harder it gets to find someone who will give it to you straight. Your board has a return to protect. Your team's A player is still always thinking about their job based on which way you go. Your investors have economics on the line. Everyone around you, however much they mean well, has a stake in the answer. So the advice you get is always shaded by someone’s interest. You can even see it in how they look at you.
I give you the read none of them can: honest, unbiased, and accountable to nothing but the quality of your thinking.
I work privately, one on one, with a small number of CEOs, founders, and leaders as their unconflicted thought partner, a confidential sounding board with the mind of a chief strategy officer, for the questions that sit with you alone. No equity. No agenda. No competing interests. When I tell you what I actually think, you’ll know it’s the truth, because I’m the one person in your orbit with nothing riding on which way you go.
What this is, and what it isn’t.
I don’t run your company, and I won’t do the work for you. I’m not a consultant, and there are no decks or deliverables. I’m the person you think out loud with before the decision is made: an honest assessor, an accountability partner, and a strategist who can actually engage the substance of what you’re carrying. You bring the questions only you can answer. I help you answer them better.
How it works.
We meet twice a month. Between sessions, I’m genuinely available, not as an on-call hotline, but as a place to think out loud when something surfaces. The relationship opens with a deep dive into your full landscape, so we never start cold. Everything, in both directions, stays between us.
Why so few.
I hold my practice to no more than eight leaders at a time. That cap is the product. It’s what keeps me honest in your market, current on your world, and fully present when you need to think.
By introduction or application. I read every one personally.
Antonia Dean is a Partner at Black Ops VC and a twenty-year veteran of law, luxury brand-building, and venture capital. More about her work →