The offsite isn’t the work. The work is everything before it.
A free 45-minute working session for CEOs, presidents and board chairs planning a 2027 leadership offsite, strategy retreat or board session. You’ll leave knowing what the room must decide, and how you want people to walk out of it.
45 minutes on Zoom • No charge • No pitch deck
Ex-McKinsey, ex-Ecolab VP. Now focused on mid-size companies, where the people deciding are the people who carry it out.
Sound Familiar?
Your Q1 offsite is on the calendar. The agenda isn’t.
Your last offsite produced great energy, 47 action items and no decisions.
Your board keeps moving the same decision to the next meeting.
Each of these starts the same way: nobody pinned down what the room had to accomplish.
What Happens in 45 Minutes
1. Your gathering
What, when, who, and why now.
2. The whole job, mapped
Six stages: objective, participants, agenda, format, logistics, content. Then we do the first one properly.
3. Your objectives, in writing
We answer three questions while I type. What must this room decide? How should people act differently on Monday? How do you want them to feel walking out?
4. My take
What your timeline allows, who needs to be in the room, and the one piece of prep that matters most.
What You Leave With
A clean planning document and one page of my advice on what to do next. It’s yours to use, with or without me.
Seven Months vs. Six Weeks
One client gave themselves seven months to prepare their offsite. Another gave themselves six weeks.
The first was a rural utility. We interviewed leaders, board members and rising stars. Then a dozen people spent a few hours per week over the summer building the facts. In the room, two directors disagreed about how much more growth their network could deliver. The CFO pulled a 1.5-inch binder of maps out of his bag and dropped it on the table.
Thud. Debate settled. The whole team signed up to grow customer share by 20 points. I came back once to help roll it out. Then they ran with it.
The second, a fast-growing entertainment franchise, had six weeks. They got a good strategy, too. But they left without a rhythm for running it week to week, and building it took far longer than the offsite did.
The calendar is the part you control.
They’re a fishing crowd, so yes, there were puns.
Already Behind?
Late isn’t too late. But it is late.
If your offsite is in Q1, you’re about three months out. That’s enough to do most of the work, if you start this week. Six weeks out, you get ruthless about what the room must decide and who needs to be in it.
Either way, the first 45 minutes are the same.
“Ability to come in on very short notice, understand the content and need, and effectively facilitate a leadership discussion and engage the team.”
What Clients Say
“Marja helped us focus our thinking and discussions such that we were able to accomplish a meaningful step to achieving our strategic goals.”
“Marja listens, she learns your business as best she can ahead of time and then is a super facilitator, teasing great ideas out of the group.”
9.5 out of 10
average client rating
45+
facilitated engagements as an independent
30+
organizations
Who You’ll Be Talking To
I’m Marja Fox. I design and facilitate the sessions where leadership teams make their biggest decisions. I spent ten years at McKinsey, then ran marketing and strategy for a billion-dollar growth business at Ecolab. Since 2021, all my work has been with leadership teams at mid-size companies. (I also have a PhD in chemistry, which is why I keep asking how things really work.)
Questions
Is it really free?
Yes. It’s the same first conversation I have with every client, and the quickest way to see how I work before you decide anything.
Is this a sales pitch?
No. At the end I’ll ask if you’d like a sketch of what more help could look like. “No thanks” is a complete answer.
Is it confidential?
Yes. What you share stays between us.
My offsite is soon. Is it too late?
Late, not too late. The less time you have, the more the first conversation matters.
Who should join?
You, plus anyone helping you plan it, like a chief of staff, CHRO or COO.
What if I want more help afterward?
Say so at the end. I’ll send a short sketch of what support for the rest could look like, and you decide from there.
Start with the Part Almost Everyone Skips
It’s me on the call, not an assistant. The only prep: your date, who’s attending, and the one decision you most want to walk out with. Sessions run weekdays through December 24 and reopen in early January.
“You did a great job steering our team into productive planning and conversation both leading up to and during our company retreat.”
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