The strategy department your agency can't afford to build.

Award-winning fractional CSO for small and mid-size agencies. Twenty-five years leading brand strategy inside top national shops — embedded in yours, without the full-time hire.

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Strategy is the most profitable thing an agency sells. But current staffing strategies don't give clients the confidence to pay for it.

The freelancer

Sharp, but they've never met your team, don't know your clients, and arrive with their own playbook. The work gets done. The agency doesn't get any smarter.

The full-time hire

Exactly what you need, and exactly what you can't justify. The salary math doesn't work — so the role stays open, and the gap stays open with it.

The “grow into it” strategist

You promote your best mid-level strategist and hope they rise. They're learning to lead strategy on your biggest pitch, in real time, at the highest stakes.

None of these are good options. They're just the options that exist — until now.

A fourth option

Senior strategy leadership, at a fraction of the cost.

CarltonHQ embeds real Chief Strategy Officer experience into your agency — without the freelancer's detachment, the full-time price tag, or the risk of learning on the job.

I get to know your agency. Your team, your clients, your pitches, your way of working. Then I show up, consistently, month after month, as the senior strategic leader your agency doesn't have on staff.

This isn't a consulting engagement. It's a seat at the table.

Not overhead

This isn't overhead. It's inventory.

Strategy is the highest-margin thing an agency can sell. Most small and mid-size shops can't sell it credibly, because they don't have anyone senior enough to lead it. CarltonHQ changes what you can put on a scope of work.

Bill for strategy you currently give away

Brand platforms, positioning, and category analysis become paid engagements instead of unpaid pitch fodder.

Win bigger assignments

Agencies that lead with strategy get invited into higher-value work — and get to keep it longer.

Defend your existing accounts

Clients don't leave agencies that own their strategic thinking.

Raise your rate card

Senior strategic leadership in the room justifies a different conversation about fees.

The goal isn't to be an expense you absorb. It's to pay for itself in the first assignment it helps you sell.

Included

I bring my own toolkit.

Senior strategic thinking runs on senior strategic inputs — research platforms, consumer databases, cultural trend tools. They carry serious annual price tags, so most agencies go without, and the work shows it.

I come with mine. My subscriptions, my data sources, my frameworks — all in the engagement, at no additional cost. Your team gets real research firepower on day one: no new line item, no procurement conversation, no year-long contract.

How it works

Three ways to work together.

Small

$5,000/mo

For agencies that need senior strategic thinking, without the full-time overhead.

Development of proprietary agency IP and strategic frameworks
Agency positioning and point of view
Senior strategic leadership on pitches and key client meetings
Bimonthly training for strategists and account teams
Full access to my research and strategy tool stack

Medium

Large

$25,000/mo

For agencies ready to build (or rebuild) a real strategy department.

8 days onsite per month
Full department build-out — hiring plan, structure, and process
Direct involvement across all major clients and new business
Priority scheduling and availability, first call when it matters most

Why CarltonHQ

I've sat in the room you're trying to staff.

Twenty-five years building and leading brand strategy departments at national agencies means I've built the department you're trying to build. I know what senior strategic leadership actually looks like — and how rare it is at the size and speed your agency runs at.

CarltonHQ exists because that experience shouldn't only be available to agencies big enough to hire it full-time.