strategic advisory & fractional chief of staff partnership

There's a point where founder-led
‍becomes
founder-dependent.

It's usually when the word bottleneck starts showing up.
Most people use the term "founder bottleneck" to describe a business where every important idea, decision, and next step has to flow through the founder.

At this point, many founders assume (and are told) that it's time to delegate more tasks, hire more people, or build out their C-suite. And yes, sometimes that's true.
‍

But I believe there's another,
more critical kind of bottleneck.‍

The kind where the business you've built keeps demanding your attention,
and the version that needs to be built next is constantly fighting for it.
‍

It's when all those bold, industry-shaping ideas that could transform your business stay trapped in notebooks, voice memos, and late-night thoughts because there's no bandwidth to build them.

And the partnerships and opportunities are piling up in your inbox, and you promise to explore them when things slow down.

‍But we both know things never do.


Eventually, the future of the business becomes too important to build in the scraps of time left at the end of the day.
‍

That's the bottleneck I help founders overcome.

And that's where our partnership begins.
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Partnership available remotely, with in-person availability in Atlanta, GA.

You’ve built a business that works. But it still needs too much of you to work.

This partnership is for seasons where the business is growing, shifting, scaling, or preparing for what is up ahead, and the work needs more strategic coordination than the current business structure (or you alone) can hold.

Here are some things you may be noticing if you're in this season:
You're running multiple priorities across a growing business (or multiple businesses) with no one close enough to the full picture.
The vision is clear to you, but you're the only one holding all the context - across the brands, the projects, the team, the decisions, and everything in the pipeline. You need a trusted partner who can step in, see the whole picture, across all your projects, ventures, and even your life, and help move the right work forward.
You have a bold idea or vision for the next version of the business that needs more than a coach or consultant.
The opportunity is on the table, but it needs someone who can think it through with you, help curate the direction, and stay close enough to the work to make sure it actually happens - not just advise from the outside.
The business is outgrowing its current structure.
The work is getting done, but it could be getting done faster and more efficiently. Your current systems, processes, communication, ownership, decision-making, or operational function need revitalization and optimization.
Revenue-driving work needs more strategic coordination.
Projects, priorities, people, and decisions are outlined, but no one outside of you is close enough to the full picture to help organize the path forward and get the work moving.
Everything is urgent, but nothing is moving.
You may have an assistant or operations manager who can execute, and business coach who can provide strategy, but you are still the person translating everything in-between. You need a "second brain" who can think across every area of the business, understand the nuance, help make sharper decisions, and support cross-functional execution follow-through.
two ladies working and collaborating together

You’re not short on vision.
You’re short on the leadership capacity to hold both what you’ve built,
and where you want to take it next.

start a conversation
DeAnna McIntosh | Fractional Chief of Staff‍
your strategic & creative right hand

Together, we'll strengthen the business that's demanding your attention, while intentionally building the version that's emerging and needs your vision.

As your Fractional Chief of Staff, I become an extension of your leadership, changing how leadership happens inside your business.

Instead of every important decision, opportunity, and initiative flowing through you, I step in to share the responsibility of moving today's business forward, while giving you back the capacity, time, and creative space to start building tomorrow's - and get back to being the visionary your business needs.
If this sounds like where you are right now, I'd love to talk.
start a conversation
leading today. building tomorrow.

My role isn't to replace your leadership.
It's to expand its capacity.

Every growing business eventually reaches a point where one leader can no longer hold both the demands of today's business and the responsibility of building tomorrow's alone.
‍
The answer isn’t always as simple as "just delegate more". You need more leadership capacity around you, so the business you’ve built can keep moving forward without pulling you away from the future you’re here to build.

This is the shift we create together. And it looks like this:

Imagine having room to think beyond what needs your attention today.

To explore the opportunity you haven't had the bandwidth to fully consider. Follow the idea that keeps resurfacing. Think through what's next for your business with someone who understands both where you're going and how the current business has to evolve to get you there.
That is what my partnership provides.
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What we can work through together

Bring me what's taking up space in your head, sitting half-built on your list, creating friction in the business, or pulling you toward something completely new.

‍Some of our work will strengthen what's already there. Some will begin with nothing more than an idea, opportunity, or "What if we..." And some will live somewhere in between.

‍We can think it through, figure out what it needs, build what's missing, bring the right people into it - and I'll take full ownership of creating the structure, and aligning teams, to move the work from conversation into something the business can actually use and see tangible impact and ROI from.
Growth & Innovation Strategy
Looking at where and how the business is ready to grow - finding white space, reinvigorating the existing model, and getting clear on what deserves attention now versus what belongs in the innovation pipeline.
Offers, Programs, and Initiatives
Taking new or existing services, programs, products, partnerships, events, internal initiatives, or future-facing ideas - building the business case, building the roadmap, coordinating and aligning all the stakeholders, and seeing it through to launch and performance analysis.
Structure and Operations Support
Creating the plans, priorities, communication, and ownership structures that keep everything, and everyone, in sync and laser focused on business priorities.
Leadership + Visioning Thought Partnership
A strategic and creative space to think through what you're seeing, explore ideas and opportunities that aren't fully formed yet, challenge assumptions, connect dots, and make sense of what's emerging before deciding what deserves to move forward.
Customer, Team, or Community Experience
Mapping, refining or reimagining the customer, team, or community experience to make sure every touchpoint is on brand, intentional, and drives loyalty and retention.
Automation and Tools
Streamlining the tools, workflows, processes and automations behind the work so less time is spent chasing tasks, repeating steps, or doing everything manually and you can spend more time on revenue-driving, strategic work.
the role that closes the gap between vision and execution, faster

Some of the most important work in the business doesn’t fit neatly into anyone’s job description.

You may already have a coach, consultant, VA, OBM, COO, or a strong team around you. Each plays an important role.
‍
‍A Fractional Chief of Staff isn’t there to replace them.
‍The difference is that I work alongside you across the business, connecting what you’re seeing and deciding with the people, priorities, structure, and execution needed to move it forward.

Here's where my role fits:
meet deanna, your strategic advisor & fractional chief of staff

The business matters. So does the person building it.

My work is built from both sides of my experience: more than a decade as a founder and small business owner and a 14-year corporate career leading strategy, innovation, and execution across Fortune 500 companies.

But my experience has never lived neatly inside one function.
I’ve worked across merchandising, sourcing, product development, innovation, operations, creative direction, event production, entrepreneurship, and strategic growth.

That breadth is exactly what allows me to do this work.
I understand the relentless pressure of being the sole person responsible for the vision, the decisions, the people, the customer experience, the details, and the follow-through.

I also understand the complexity of moving work through larger systems, aligning cross-functional teams around priorities, and turn strong ideas into something structured enough to understand, support, and execute.

My gift is being able to see the fullness of your bold, big-picture vision and translate that into strategy, structure and a tangible execution plan.

I bring the creative eye from my background in fashion and retail, and the analytical rigor from managing multi-billion-dollar merchandise departments and managing my own P&L. That mix allows me to have the vision and foresight to see both what is possible and the granular detail of what it will actually take to make it work.

When we work together, the focus is on the business: what you are building, where it is going, what needs to move forward, and what it will take to bring the right opportunities into reality.

But what is different about my partnership, is that I am also paying attention to what the work is asking of you as the person leading it.

I’m a mom of two, a wife, a daughter, a founder, and a person with a full life outside of my work. I do not believe meaningful business growth should require us to ignore who we are as humans behind our work.

That belief is why I take a human-first approach to our partnership.

We’re building the business with the person leading it in mind. Your capacity, energy and the way you want to lead matters. And what you want the business to make possible for you in this next phase matters, too.

Human-first means our work has room for real life, whether that is a child popping in to say hi on a live call, a decision that needs more space than we expected, or a conversation about what would make the work more sustainable for you, not just more productive for the business.

Growth, innovation, and execution do not happen outside of people. They happen through people: through your capacity, your team’s clarity, your customers’ needs, your communication, your decisions, and the realities around building something impactful.

The goal of this partnership isn't just to help the business move forward.

It is to help make room for the kind of leadership, structure, and support that allows you to be more present inside the work and outside of it.
DeAnna McIntosh, Fractional Chief of Staff for CPG Founders inside a retail storeDeAnna McIntosh, Fractional Chief of Staff for CPG Founders inside a retail store
DeAnna McIntosh, Fractional Chief of Staff
deanna@thevisionry.com
575-573-8245
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I've Built What Didn't Exist Yet

man's hand is in his pocket
I’ve asked “What if?” a lot in my career. Here are a few of the places it led me.

$117M Business

Created the first-to-market No-Iron Linen category.
Turned an untapped opportunity inside a stagnant $117M business into a new product category and revenue stream that continues generating sales 14+ years later.

10% GROWTH

Rebuilt the strategy and operations of a $60M business.
Restructured how the business planned, prioritized, and executed its work, increasing alignment and productivity across the business while driving 10% sales growth.

3 CITIES. 1 YEAR.

Created and scaled a bridal show across three markets.
Built the concept from the ground up, leading the strategy, partnerships, marketing, experience, and production before expanding it across three cities within one year.

A FORTUNE 500 FIRST

Challenged “business as usual” to build what hadn’t been done before.
Created and launched the company’s first model for bringing local small businesses into its stores, connecting an entrepreneurial idea across the people, processes, and systems of a Fortune 500 organization to make it executable.
FROM STRATEGY TO EXECUTION

There’s strategy. And then there’s translating it into plans, systems, and action.

Depending on what we're working through, that might mean getting into the project plan, pulling apart the numbers, building a presentation, mapping a workflow, testing an automation, or working directly inside the systems your team already uses.

Here are some of the tools I’ve worked with along the way.
the fractional chief of staff partnership details

How we'll work together

The work of leading, building, and innovating is fluid, and our partnership is designed to move with it.
The level and type of support can flex with what the business, and you, need in any given season.

Fractional Chief of Staff Partnership Includes:

Live, Strategic Conversations
I’m a big proponent of not turning everything into a meeting. We'll have live conversations for decisions, direction, planning, nuance, and anything that benefits from real-time, deeply collaborative thinking.
Async Thought Partnership
You'll have a dedicated space to send voice notes, questions, updates, ideas, documents, links, or the “I keep thinking about this…” thought that isn’t fully formed yet. I can review, respond, or think it through with you between live conversations.
Working Documents
I’ll create and maintain the priorities, plans, briefs, roadmaps, notes, drafts, decisions, and other working documents we need to keep the work visible and moving as our partnership develops.
Execution Support Where Needed
I’ll help create materials, clarify communication, organize next steps, build and review plans, prepare for important conversations, and step directly into execution where my involvement will help move the work forward.
4-hour Response Time
You can expect a thoughtful response from me within four business hours.

The human-first part of this partnership goes beyond the work itself.
‍It's about being with you in the moments surrounding the work too.

When the work has to be spoken out loud, presented, launched, led, or carried into a space where other people can finally respond to it, I don’t want you to feel like we built the vision together and then you had to walk into the room alone.
If we've spent months preparing you for a big speaking engagement, I can fly out and be your right hand in the room. I can sit beside you before a board or investor meeting. Join you at a team offsite. Support a launch event. Walk through a customer experience with you on the ground.

I’m not here to help you create the vision, hand you the strategy, and disappear.
‍I’m here to stay close enough to help the work move from idea to built reality.
‍
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3 Ways to Partner

Each partnership is centered around what the business, and you as the leader, needs in this season.

You may need an ongoing strategic thought partner, dedicated space to step outside the day-to-day and focus on the future of the business, or an embedded Fractional Chief of Staff helping you lead today’s business while building tomorrow’s.
ongoing advisory & thought partnership

Strategic Partner

Strategic and creative thinking partner for the ideas, decisions, and opportunities on your plate
Organize priorities so your day-to-day feels less reactive and more intentional
Think through new ideas and opportunities before deciding what deserves to move forward
Bring an innovation lens to what the business could build, improve, test, or reimagine next
Keep the bigger vision in view while making clearer decisions week to week
Includes async advisory support throughout the month, plus up to three live strategy calls to clarify priorities, decisions, and next moves
From $1,500/mo
Explore Strategic Advisory
As the work grows, we can expand the partnership into deeper strategy, roadmapping, or execution support.
a full, focused day of STRATEGY, INNOVATION & ROADMAPPING

The 1-Day Offsite

Step outside the day-to-day and give the bigger picture your full attention
Clarify the vision, priorities, decisions, and opportunities in front of you
Explore the ideas, opportunities, questions, and decisions that haven’t had enough room to be fully thought through
Identify the people, conversations, and alignment needed to move the work forward
Map what needs to happen across the next 90 days
Leave with a strategic foundation for execution, buy-in, or deeper partnership
$3,800 One-time Investment
Plan Your 1-day Offsite
Experience available virtually or in-person
Embedded leadership, strategy & execution

Fractional Chief of Staff

Share the responsibility of leading priorities, decisions, and initiatives across today’s business so everything no longer has to flow through you
Connect the people, priorities, decisions, and execution needed to keep important work moving
Translate new ideas and opportunities into initiatives the business can actually test, build, and launch, that I ultimately owm
Create the structure, workflows, tools and starting points for work being built from scratch
Build the decks, docs, templates, workflows, trackers, and tools that help move the work forward
Set up reporting cadences, decision rhythms, meeting structures, and priority check-ins
Includes ongoing async strategic support + weekly live working sessions
From $5,000/mo
Explore Embedded Support
3-month minimum commitment to create structure, build momentum, and see meaningful impact.

In Their Words

Chizi U.
Tech Founder
“DeAnna's refining of our pitch deck and developing of our ability to speak clearly on the impact of our solution helped us raise $120K shortly afterwards. The depth and breadth of her knowledge shocked us a few times, and to back it up she was able to provide targeted connections to individuals within her network. Our institutional investors made a pointed remark on her involvement with us; it strengthened their investment rationale in our company.”
Kali G.
Wellness Retail Business Owner
“DeAnna is a genius at creating and sharing the MOST useful documents that have completely re-defined how I manage the business day-to-day and make all decisions. In working with DeAnna, we have not only set up a solid foundation for operating our business, but we have seen double-digit sales growth and most importantly, as the founder and CEO, I now have that Billion-dollar brand mindset when making any and all decisions related to the business.”
Stephanie H.
Career Development Coach
“Where can I start? DeAnna and her team are incredible.  They are responsive, kind, knowledgeable. They worked with me through my indecision. This was my first re-brand, and at many points, I didn't know what I wanted to how to communicate it.  This may sound strange, but I believe they saw my brand clearer than I did. I am beyond happy with my website and brand guide, but even more so with the experience. Truly grateful I invested!”
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Let’s talk through what the right level of support looks like for you.

You don’t need to have everything fully figured out before we talk.
Tell me what’s happening in the business right now, what’s taking more of you than it should, and what you’re trying to make room for next. We’ll talk through where you are, what kind of support would actually create relief, and whether one of these partnerships feels like the right fit.

Choose a time below and we’ll start there.
Partnership is available remotely., with in-person availability in Atlanta, GA.
P.S. Tech Happens. If the booking calendar isn’t working, email me directly at deanna@thevisionry.com with 2–3 times that work for you, and I'll send over a calendar invite.

FAQ

A few things that may have popped up in your mind:
Is this traditional Fractional Chief of Staff support?
Yes, but with The Visionry’s human-first, innovation-forward approach. You still get the strategic right-hand support of a fractional Chief of Staff, but the work can begin earlier, while the idea, opportunity, project, system or next direction is still taking shape. I help you shape what is emerging, help build what does not exist yet, and move the right work forward - including the moments where the vision has to be led in real life, from key meetings and offsites to launches, presentations, and community-facing work.
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Do you work with specific industries?
I’m industry-flexible by design. My experience spans retail, merchandising, sourcing, product development, innovation, creative direction, event production, entrepreneurship, operations, and strategic growth.What I bring isn’t expertise in one narrow industry. It’s the ability to understand how a business works, see connections across functions, ask the right questions quickly, and help translate the bigger vision into something the business can actually move on.
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Can you work with the team and support I already have?
Absolutely. You may already have an EA, operations leader, functional leads, agencies, consultants, or other partners doing great work. My role is not to replace them. I help connect the work happening across the business, create clarity around priorities and ownership, and make sure important decisions and initiatives don’t continually have to come back through you.
Do you advise, execute, or both?
Both. The point of this partnership is not to leave you with another strategy document to figure out alone. I help you think through what's in front of you, build the roadmap, and support the execution - even when sometimes it means me building parts of the work myself to "just get it done".
Do I need to know exactly what I need before reaching out?
No. On the call we'll talk about  what’s happening in the business, what’s demanding your attention, what you’re trying to make room for, and where you think you need support. We’ll figure out together whether Strategic Partner, a 1-Day Offsite, Fractional Chief of Staff support, or something else makes the most sense.
What happens when we start working together?
We start by getting me close to the business: where you’re going, what matters now, how the team works, what’s already in motion, and where too much still depends on you. From there, we establish our priorities and working rhythm and begin creating clearer ownership around what needs to move. You don’t need to "clean everything up" before we start. Part of my job is helping make sense of what’s already there.
How much time will you spend inside my business?
Fractional Chief of Staff support isn’t structured as a bank of hours for you to use up. We establish a cadence and level of involvement based on what we’re leading together. Some weeks may require more meetings, building, or hands-on involvement; others may lean more heavily on decisions, thought partnership, or async work. The partnership flexes around the work rather than filling a predetermined number of hours.

Let's talk about what you're building toward.

Tell me what's happening in the business, what keeps finding its way back to you, and what you wish you had more room to focus on. We'll start there.
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