A curated, paid advisory group with real input on real board decisions.
The room is not there to signal that you consulted widely. It is not there to produce a report. It is not a symbolic advisory board whose input is reviewed and then set aside.
If what you want is a photograph, this is the wrong room.
Critical Friends is a small, standing group of professionals from marginalized positions who advise executive teams and boards on specific decisions in progress — not on culture in the abstract.
The measure is not whether the group was consulted. It is whether the decision changed.
This is designed for organizations that have already noticed the difference between hearing a perspective and letting a perspective change the vote. If that difference is still theoretical, this is not the right room yet.
Four scheduled sessions a year, plus ad hoc convenings around specific decisions in flight.
The group is curated for each engagement — matched to sector, decision type, and the specific perspectives absent from the current room.
One coordinating hand across sessions, so context does not have to be re-explained each quarter.
Advisory work performed by people from marginalized positions is still, routinely, expected to be free — offered as service, or traded for visibility. Critical Friends is built on the opposite premise: this expertise is compensated at a professional advisory rate, transparently, before the first session.
This is stated here because it is a condition of the work, and because a client who needs to negotiate it downward is telling us something important about the readiness of the room.
A private message. Answered personally.