For founder-led businesses with larger teams
Private Strategy Engagement
A 12-week strategic engagement to rebuild the foundations of your business, and give your team a playbook they can actually execute against.
We’ll talk through where your business is, what you’re stuck on, and whether this is the right fit.
What you get
✓
A complete strategic foundation: positioning, business model, go-to-market, operating rhythm
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A strategic playbook your team can act on, not just notes from our sessions
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Strategy HQ, your AI companion pack that helps you implement afterwards
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Defined priorities for each part of the business
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A 12-month implementation roadmap
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Decision-making frameworks that keep the strategy on track
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From $20,000 + GST
Meet Saskia
Saskia Thornton is a Taranaki-based growth strategist, former CMO and founder with 17 years’ hands-on experience building and growing businesses.
What the Market Alignment Method™ is.
This isn’t a strategy document you’ll file and forget.
Over 12 weeks, I work directly with you (and, where relevant, your leadership team) to rebuild the strategic foundation of your business. We go through the complete Market Alignment Method™: all eight layers of alignment, from vision and market through to your scorecard and how the strategy gets embedded.
You walk out with a strategic playbook your whole team works from. Not notes from our sessions. A real document, and the AI context files that guide how your business operates.
Who this is for
You’ll get the most from this if:
You’ll get the most from this if…
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You run a founder-led business with real traction, product or service
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You have a team, but no clear strategic foundation everyone’s working from
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You’re making decisions, but not always with confidence in the direction
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You’ve tried tactics (agencies, rebrands, new hires) and know the problem is deeper than that
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You want the whole thing sorted, not just one layer fixed
Not a fit if…
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You’re looking for someone to run ads, manage socials, or do marketing for you
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The founder isn’t prepared to be genuinely challenged on the direction of the business
What we build together
This is the Market Alignment Method™ applied at full depth, the same approach behind the growth of the brands I’ve personally been behind building.
01
Clarity and positioning
What business you’re actually building. Where the real opportunity sits. Your value proposition and the top three strategic priorities that follow from it.
02
Commercial design and go-to-market
Who you’re really for, and why. Offer structure and pricing. How customers move through your business from first contact to advocate.
03
Systems, rhythm, and embedding
How you measure whether it’s working. How decisions get made. The operating rhythm that keeps the strategy alive. A 12-month roadmap with clear priorities.
What you walk away with
01
Strategic clarity
In your head and your team’s. You’ll know exactly where to focus, what to stop, and why.
02
A strategic playbook your team can use
Long after we finish: positioning, business model, go-to-market, operating rhythm. A living document, not a PDF no one opens.
03
Your Strategy HQ
Every decision built into a working file your team, or your AI tools, can be briefed from directly.
Why me?
Because at this level, you’re not really paying for access to a framework. You’re paying for judgement.
I’m Saskia Thornton, a growth strategist based in Taranaki. Before I advised businesses, I built them.
I built Mad Millie and Grainfather from scratch, from finding the gap in the market and shaping the concept through to product and growth. Mad Millie grew to 130,000 units a year across New Zealand, the USA, Australia and the UK. Grainfather grew to roughly $35M in recurring revenue.
Both were built inside Bevie, a $60M business with 120 staff, where I was CMO and a board member. I was also part of Bevie’s acquisition by a large global US malting company, including the due diligence process.
I later co-founded FTN Motion, with oversubscribed capital rounds.
So I’ve made the kinds of decisions I now help business owners and founders work through. What market do we pursue? What do we stop doing? Where should the money go? Which opportunities actually fit? What does the team need? What should marketing be doing? And what sounds like a good idea but probably isn’t one?
That’s what I bring into a private engagement. I’m not there to take you through a set of exercises. I’m there to understand the business quickly, challenge the thinking where it needs challenging, spot where things aren’t lining up, and help turn the strategy into something the wider team can actually work from.
What past clients say
“
When I came on as Marketing Director and saw all the work Saskia had done, I was blown away. The systems she built weren’t just impressive, they were part of the reason I wanted to take the job in the first place.
Jo Nevin · Marketing Director
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There are a billion freelancers and strategic marketing consultants, but Saskia is actually experienced in running and building businesses, which makes her different. We now have a clear scoreboard and strategy for where the business is heading.
Gemma Brewerton · Founder/Director
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Saskia has a unique ability to drive marketing strategy and vision into the team. She didn’t just give us guidelines, she established a mindset for brand leadership that is now ingrained in our company.
Luke Sinclair · Founder/CEO
Investment
$20,000
+ GST
Engagements involving in-person workshops, multiple stakeholders, or extended scope are quoted at proposal stage. I take on a small number of these strategy engagements each year. This work requires genuine immersion in your business, and I only do it when the fit is right.
Book your clarity call
Why Private Strategy Engagement instead of the Group Cohort?
Both use the Market Alignment Method™. The difference is how closely I’m involved in applying it to your business.
The Group Cohort
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I teach you the Method. You work through the decisions for your own business
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You learn alongside other business owners and founders
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I challenge your thinking and help you get clear
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You take the strategy back into the business and lead the implementation
Private Strategy Engagement
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We work through the Method inside your actual business
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I go much deeper into your market, offer, commercial model, team and the complexity that already exists
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Your leadership team can be involved where that makes sense
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You get more direct challenge, feedback and strategic input from me, and we work on how the strategy gets understood and used across the business, not just how it gets decided
You don’t need to decide before we speak.
Let’s think this through properly
Book your clarity call
A 20-minute call to sense-check where you’re at. We’ll talk through where your business is, what you’re stuck on, and whether this is the right fit.