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Strategic Leadership for Teams and Individuals

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Services

Whether you need a transformative offsite or workshop for your team, fractional VP support for your engineering organization, or 1:1 advising for your leadership challenges, I bring a unique combination of technical credibility and facilitation mastery.

The SPICE Framework

Every team gathering—whether offsite, workshop, or conference—follows the same proven 5-principle framework:

Strategy Through Connection
Strategy Through Connection

Trust builds while having important conversations

Productive Inclusion
Productive Inclusion

Structured so everyone contributes meaningfully

Intentional Flow
Intentional Flow

Every session connects, building toward your goal

Concrete Outcomes
Concrete Outcomes

Results that last, not just good feelings

Enduring Decisions
Enduring Decisions

Action plans still executing months later

Learn more about our approach

Most Team Gatherings Waste Precious Time

Teams invest thousands of dollars in time, travel, salaries, and more into offsites that produce zero lasting change. Workshops feel good in the moment but create no behavior shifts. Conferences are forgettable networking events with awkward business card exchanges.

The result? Same stuck conversations. Same challenges. No real progress.

There's a better way.

Three Ways to Work With Teams

Whether you're a 15-person leadership team, a 30-person engineering department, or a 500-person conference, the approach is the same—scaled for your context.

Offsites & Onsites

Offsites & Onsites

For: Leadership teams, departments, or full companies ready to align, decide, and bond

2-3 day immersive experiences where real decisions get made. Leave with clarity on strategy, stronger relationships, and action plans that actually happen.

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Workshops

Workshops

For: Teams needing focused skill-building in half-day to full-day sessions

Intensive, interactive sessions on specific challenges: communication, conflict, feedback, decision-making. Practical tools your team uses immediately.

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Conference Experiences

Conference Experiences

For: Conference organizers who want attendees to leave transformed, not just informed

Turn passive attendance into active connection. Design the "hallway track" intentionally so your conference creates lasting professional relationships.

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Additional Services

Fractional VP of Engineering

For series A to D companies needing engineering leadership without a full-time hire

The experience and expertise you need with the budget and scope you have.

Do you:

  • Constantly deprioritize important tasks?
  • Need someone to partner with for faster engineering progress?
  • Want someone who's seen it all and knows what to do?
  • Wish you knew more about what your engineering team is working on?
  • Wish your engineering team was more cross-functional?
  • Need to hire an engineering leader but don't know where to start?

1:1 Advising and Mentoring

For Engineering leaders needing outside perspective and guidance

A personalized perspective on the things you care about the most.

Do you:

  • Need someone to talk through options and explore possibilities?
  • Want to assess what is working and what isn't on your engineering team?
  • Struggle with putting a change in place with your team, peers, or managers?
  • Want to know how to prepare or what to expect for a big change you're planning?
  • Wish you could get additional perspectives before rolling out something new?
  • Need to think through a career move and want to have some help?
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What others are saying

Allison knows how to build and sustain incredibly effective engineering, product, design partnerships. Working with her really helped strengthen the entire company and what we were able to ship to users.

Jennie Ocken

Enterprise Principal Product Manager, CH Robinson

Allison knows when and how to work with individuals and teams both at the leadership level and those reporting to her to empower and engage and get results.

Lynn Wallenstein

SVP of Engineering, CargoSense

I worked with Allison at GitHub, including on one of the most organizationally complex projects of my career. She's basically the most effective engineering leader I've ever worked with. She's knowledgeable, strategic, and fantastic at building alignment across many stakeholders and driving outcomes.

Joel Califa

VP Design, Heap

Offsites with Allison were amazing. She knew how to make sure we walked away from our experiences with great memories, lots of fun, critical action steps, and a great plan moving forward.

Josh Puetz

Experienced Software Engineer, Donut

What stands out about Allison is her passion for building well-operating, happy and diverse engineering teams, her ability to help organizations think critically about big-picture topics like goal-setting and planning, and her willingness to work cross-functionally. Allison is a partner who is always in doing what is best for both customers and the business as a whole.

Caroline Tarpey

Founder, Karon Consulting

I value Allison as a critical thought partner. She asks great questions to get to the heart of what’s going on and works collaboratively to empathize and advise on possible solutions.

Neha Batra

VP of Engineering, GitHub

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