LeadForward Strategic Growth Leadership Cohort
Lead with clarity, confidence, and community.
Step into your next growth challenge with a peer group designed to help you thrive — not just survive — as a strategic leader.
The LeadForward 2026 Strategic Growth Leadership Cohort is a six-month, virtual experience created for A/E/C professionals ready to move from reacting to leading with purpose.
You’ll gain clarity, build tools, and develop the confidence to lead your teams into what’s next.
Why join?
- You’re stepping into a new role, or a familiar role that suddenly feels different.
- The expectations are high. The plans are ambitious. And somewhere between “set the vision” and “get it done,” you realize you need more than another spreadsheet or retreat.
- You need clarity. You need focus.
- And you need a group of people who get it — leaders who are also navigating what it means to grow strategically, with intention.
That’s exactly what LeadForward offers: a place to slow down, reflect, and realign before charging ahead.
LEARN MORE OR REGISTER TODAY!
The next Cohort session begins the week of January 19, 2026.
$2,500 for the full six-month program (limited to 12 participants).
What You'll Gain
Every part of the LeadForward experience is built to help you lead with confidence—and without burnout.
- Peer Support: Join a small, curated group of like-minded professionals, from across the country, tackling similar growth challenges. You’ll gain not just insights, but genuine accountability and encouragement.
- Tools & Strategies: Access a robust toolkit to help you define success, lead teams effectively, and align operations to your goals.
- Clarity for Leadership: Walk away with a sharper understanding of how to grow your firm — and yourself — in a way that’s sustainable and strategic.
- Accountability for Action: Because growth doesn’t happen in isolation, this is where ideas become next steps, and goals become momentum.
Your guides
LeadForward gives you more than tools — it gives you guides who’ve walked the path. Sarah Kinard and Marion Thatch pair strategic clarity with grounded coaching to help you lead with purpose, confidence, and a whole lot more ease.
Sarah Kinard
Strategic Growth Advisor & Co-Guide
Sarah brings clarity, structure, and a future-focused lens to every conversation. As the driving force behind The Flamingo Project’s research-driven, human-centered approach to growth, she helps leaders cut through noise, define what matters, and build strategic rhythms that actually work. Her gift is making the complex feel simple—and the overwhelming feel doable.
As Marion’s co-guide, Sarah brings the strategic architecture and momentum, pairing seamlessly with Marion’s coaching depth to create a supportive, energizing space for leaders ready to step into what’s next.
Marion Thatch, FSMPS, CPCC
Leadership & Marketing Strategist & Co-Guide
Marion brings a grounded, practical approach to leadership and marketing — the kind that comes from real, inside-the-firm experience paired with an outside advisor’s clarity. As President of Distinction in Marketing, she helps leaders navigate mindset shifts, change management, and the human side of strategic growth with steady encouragement and smart, actionable insight.
As Sarah’s co-guide, Marion brings depth, perspective, and intuitive coaching that helps participants build confidence, take action, and keep moving forward — even when things get messy.
What the six months look like
Each month focuses on a different aspect of strategic growth — blending leadership clarity, operational tools, and actionable next steps.
Month 1: Planning with Purpose: How to set yourself up for success and architect a process that builds buy-in.
Month 2: Defining Growth: Use the Growth Matrix to understand where your firm is now — and what “growth” really means for you.
Month 3: From Ideas to Strategy: Move insights into themes that connect communication, operations, and action.
Month 4: Communication for Alignment: Create clarity across teams, clients, and leadership so everyone rows in the same direction.
Month 5: Operationalizing Growth: Turn strategy into systems and momentum into measurable results.
Month 6: Action & Accountability: Track progress, celebrate wins, and set up the rhythm for what’s next.
Each month combines guided sessions, peer discussions, and templates designed to help you apply what you’re learning in real time.
READY TO MAKE 2026 YOUR MOST FOCUSED YEAR YET?
- When: January-June 2026
- Investment: $2,500
- Limited to 12 participants. We’re keeping this cohort small, limited to 12 participants, to create space for meaningful dialogue and growth.
Accepting for the January 2026 Cohort.
Who joins LeadForward?
This cohort was designed for growth-minded leaders across the A/E/C industry, people who WANT to refine how they think, plan, and lead.
- A principal or director of strategy who’s ready to align vision with execution.
- A marketing or BD leader tired of reactive planning and ready for systems that work.
- An operations or finance exec craving clarity and focus for the next growth cycle.
Let’s LeadForward — together.
“Implementing the strategic plan will be the hard part. Implementation is about effective change management, and I want to learn how to facilitate that well, because that’s where success really happens.”
— Kristin Beamer, Chief Marketing & Strategy Officer, McKim & Creed, Inc.
you don't have to navigate alone!
The next Cohort session begins in January 2026!
$2,500 for the full six-month program (limited to 12 participants).
Resources
THE K-12 CONSTRUCTION MARKET HAS THREE LAYERS. MOST AEC FIRMS ONLY SEE ONE.
The national K-12 construction market looks healthy from a distance. Enrollment is large, facility stock is aging, and communities across the country are investing in schools. Pull back the lens a little further, and the picture gets more nuanced — and more...
THE EVOLUTION OF AEC MARKETING STRATEGY: AND THE QUIET SHIFTS THAT CHANGED GROWTH
Over the past 25 years, the AEC industry hasn’t changed overnight. It has shifted gradually—through signals many of us didn’t recognize until they became impossible to ignore. As a strategic growth consultant working with architecture, engineering, and construction...
BEFORE YOU KICK OFF YOUR NEXT INITIATIVE, ASK THIS ONE QUESTION
It’s the question we ask first when a firm brings us in to lead a growth initiative, a rebrand, a new market entry, or a post-merger alignment. And it’s the question that, honestly, most executive teams can’t answer cleanly. Initiatives in AEC tend to get set up the...
Q1 IS OVER. IS YOUR AEC GROWTH PLAN STILL WORKING?
A lot has changed since October. Here’s how to tell if your AEC Growth Plan is still pointing at the right target —and what to do when it isn’t.April is the moment of truth for most AEC growth plans. Q1 is behind you, Q2 is just getting started, and somewhere between...
GROUNDHOG DAY AND YOUR BUSINESS PLAN: WHAT TO ADJUST NOW
January has a funny way of sobering us up. In the fall, you planned. You workshopped. You debated priorities. You built the business plan, nodded confidently, and kicked things off on January 1 with fresh notebooks and big energy. And now it is late January. The...
TECH CAN’T REPLACE CULTURE: EMPLOYEE ADVOCACY LESSONS FROM LEADFORWARD
Ida Cheinman of Substance151 kicked off a LeadForward session with a powerful conversation about employee advocacy, technology, and culture in AEC firms. She opened with a simple but important question: How do we truly know when employees are proud of their workplace?...
HOW TO USE THE GROWTH STRATEGY MATRIX
Growth in the A/E/C industry is not for the faint of heart. Markets shift, clients evolve, and even the most seasoned leaders can feel caught between chasing opportunities and sticking to what’s safe. The truth is, growth can feel messy, especially when it’s reactive...
NAVIGATING MARKET SHIFTS IN THE A/E/C INDUSTRY
Navigating market shifts in AEC has never been more critical. Some shifts come quietly, others make a lot of noise, but all of them create ripples that affect how firms do business. The key is not to avoid shifts, it’s to understand where they hit your business and...
GO TO INDUSTRY RESEARCH AND PULSE RESOURCES FOR AEC MARKETING AND STRATEGY
Market research can feel like a big, abstract concept, but at the end of the day, it’s about knowing where to look for the right insights. Over the years, I’ve built a go-to list of resources that I check regularly to understand market shifts, track competitor trends,...
FROM PLAN TO PRACTICE: MAKING STRATEGY STICK INSIDE YOUR FIRM
Every January, firms roll out fresh strategies with fanfare. The PowerPoint decks are polished, the goals are inspiring, and leadership beams with optimism. By mid-year, reality sets in. Competing priorities creep in, teams lose focus, and the strategy becomes...