The AdvisoryApply
The Executive Read Advisory

Trusted to deliver. Not always seen as the leader.

You are operating at one level. You are being evaluated at another.

A private advisory for senior leaders who want their name connected to direction, influence, and larger opportunities, not just execution.

Your name starts getting connected to the roles, the rooms, and recognition you've already earned.

Apply for the Advisory

If this is you

You're the one everyone relies on when it matters, trusted to execute and stabilize, and still watching the strategic seat go to people read as the leader.

That isn't a performance problem. It's a problem of the category your leadership gets filed under. And it's exactly what this work corrects.

Trusted by senior leaders at

Netflix logoAdobe logoDisney logoGoldman Sachs logoDeloitte logoApple logoGoogle logoMicrosoft logoAmazon logoMcDonald's logoNetflix logoAdobe logoDisney logoGoldman Sachs logoDeloitte logoApple logoGoogle logoMicrosoft logoAmazon logoMcDonald's logo

7 years

of proprietary work studying how senior leaders get categorized

Fortune 500

and high-growth companies advised on the executive read

Author

of The Executive Read: How Strategic Leaders Stop Being Overlooked

The Problem

You were never the problem.

You carry serious scope. You make the calls that move real outcomes. The people around you lean on your judgment every single day.

And yet somewhere along the way, the people deciding your future formed a read on you. A quiet, unexamined conclusion about what you are, set early and left to harden long after you outgrew it.

You can feel it.

01

The title that doesn't match the scope.

02

The feedback that stays vague.

03

The opportunities that keep going to people who aren't doing what you're doing.

04

The sense that something is off, but you can't quite name it.

The hardest part isn't the work. It's the reading.

At your level, the stakes of a misread are not small. The wrong strategic call. The opportunity you let pass because you couldn't tell if the moment was real. The stakeholder shift you sensed too late. The signal you mistook for noise, or the noise you treated as signal.

These are not confidence problems. They are interpretation problems. And the cost of getting them wrong at this level is not a slow month. It's a door that closes.

The real question isn't whether you lead. It's the category people file you into: the operator who delivers, or the leader who shapes direction.

That is a different problem entirely. And no amount of working harder inside the old read will solve it.

After the Read

Seeing the read clearly is the start. Knowing what to do next is the work.

The moment you can see how you are being read, a second question arrives fast. Now what. The recruiter who just reached out. The role that might be bigger than it sounds, or smaller. The compensation number you cannot tell is a real signal. The title question. The interview you get one shot at. These are not confidence problems, and they are not simply advancement problems. They are judgment calls, and at your level the cost of getting one wrong is high.

The higher you rise, the fewer people you have around you to think with.

That is what the leaders who stay are actually buying. Not a diagnosis. A second mind. Someone outside your organization who knows exactly how you are being read and works the decision with you in real time, before you send the email, walk into the room, or name the number.

The questions you carry alone at this level

Should I pursue this role, or is it a lateral move dressed up as a step up?

Is this role actually bigger than it sounds, or smaller?

Is this compensation number a real signal, or am I reading too much into it?

Is this recruiter seeing something I am not?

Is now the moment to make a move, or the moment to hold?

How do I want to be positioned for whatever comes after this decision?

What Changes

This is not a program you finish and then wait on.

The shift starts while we are in the work together, not after it ends.

The read on you begins to correct. Your scope gets talked about as leadership, not output. Your name starts coming up in the rooms where direction gets set, not just the ones where things get handled. The conversations that decide promotions and compensation start opening to you, and you walk into each one knowing exactly how to make your authority land.

Before

Respected, relied on, and quietly filed as the operator.

After

Read as the strategist, connected to bigger scope, and in the conversations that decide what comes next.

Real Outcomes

Situations this work has helped leaders navigate

Why Now

Being underestimated costs more than it used to.

The economy has tightened. Budgets are under review, headcount is being cut, and there are fewer senior seats than there were a year ago. In a market like this, the leaders quietly filed as operational or reliable execution are the first ones treated as replaceable, no matter how much scope they actually carry.

When there are fewer roles and more strong people competing for each one, the read decides everything. There is no room for a second look. The conclusion people reach about you in the first few minutes is the conclusion that sticks, and it determines which rooms stay open to you and which quietly close.

A misread in this market is not a slow month. It is the promotion that goes to someone else, the compensation number that locks in low, the move you cannot reverse for a year or more, because the door does not reopen quickly when seats are scarce. Correcting how you are read has gone from useful to essential.

What Makes This Different

This work starts from a different assumption.

Let me say what I already believe about you before we begin. You're good at this. That was never the question. What's actually happening is that the people around you are reading your work and quietly arriving at the wrong conclusion. That is the thing we fix together.

A Living Advisory

The market does not stand still. Neither does this.

The frameworks evolve as the market shifts.

The way senior leaders get evaluated does not stay still. New patterns emerge, old signals lose weight, and the bar keeps moving. The Executive Read Library is not a fixed archive. It is updated continuously as these shifts become visible, so you are never working from a playbook that has already aged.

You stay current on what is actually happening.

Hiring patterns at the executive level, how leadership roles are being scoped, which signals are getting rewarded right now, and where organizations are placing their trust. You get the intelligence you need to position yourself against a market that is moving in real time, not against what was true two years ago.

You are not studying a course. You are inside a current system.

This advisory does not hand you a curriculum and send you on your way. It is a working system that stays alive: updated frameworks, live market reads, and a room of peers navigating the same moving landscape. You enter the work at the level the market is actually operating at today.

What This Advisory Teaches

The terrain that decides how senior leaders get evaluated

These are the areas this advisory teaches you to read and move inside. You learn to see each one clearly and act on it deliberately, so you are not waiting for a situation to go sideways before you understand what was actually being measured.

01Leadership visibility
02Executive communication
03Strategic influence
04Organizational dynamics
05Stakeholder relationships
06Promotion and compensation conversations
07Leadership perception and signals
08Positioning your value at the right level
How It Works

A hybrid of private advisory depth and peer perspective

You get the strategic depth of private advisory work combined with the perspective that comes from a room of leaders navigating similar dynamics.

In Their Words

Senior leaders, in their own words

These are leaders who came in already accomplished and left with a sharper read on how their work was landing. Dr. Natalie D. Lewis went on to land an Executive Director role. Brooke December Watt landed VP of Product. Their words are below.

Dr. Natalie D. Lewis

Executive Education Leader, Senior Learning Executive

Working with Alicia was an amazing experience. She pushed me to ask myself challenging questions that surfaced limiting thoughts about myself and my potential. I am so grateful for our work together and would highly recommend partnering with her.

Went on to land an Executive Director role

Brooke December Watt

Global Brand & Product Executive

Working with Alicia Perkins was one of the most clarifying and empowering career investments I have made. She helped me articulate my values, refine my professional positioning, and align my next career move with both purpose and impact. Her ability to draw out clarity and confidence is unmatched.

Went on to land a VP of Product role

Yakema Moore

Senior HR Executive, C-Suite Advisory. Meta, Uber, Alight

Working with Alicia gave me far more than career positioning. It gave me renewed clarity and a strategic lens for how to position the depth of my experience with intention. I walked away with stronger clarity, refined direction, and a renewed sense of professional identity. I would recommend Alicia to any executive looking to sharpen their strategy and move forward with purpose.

Francena Dennis, MBA

Director of Business Operations, $100M+ Multi-Program Operation

It was a pleasure to work with Alicia in the positioning program. The frameworks she developed helped me pause, assess, and implement the right actions to stop proving and start positioning myself in my organization. It has been eye-opening and exceptionally accurate in helping leaders understand how their actions are being read by others.

Larcus N. Pickett

Senior Leader, Global Strategy, Policy & Partnerships

Alicia has a unique gift for asking the hard, but necessary, questions that push you to refine your thinking. Her thoughtful career analysis gave me the confidence to own my leadership strengths, and she offered language and framing that allowed me to position myself more effectively for the roles I was aiming for.

Chelsea Bullock

Product Strategy & Transformation, Enterprise Commercial Direction

Working with Alicia gave me the clarity and confidence to unstick myself. Her superpower is applying her own deep expertise to illuminate and elevate your own. Adding Alicia to your personal board of advisors is a no-brainer for anyone feeling stuck in their role or level.

Marie-Astrid Siransy, MSc

Chief Strategy Officer, Pension Fund Investment Director

I am extremely grateful for the exceptional support and guidance provided by Alicia. Her professionalism, brilliant insights, and meticulous handling of our agenda made my global career move incredibly smooth. If you are thinking about working with her, jump right in. You will not regret a minute.

Dr. Natalie D. Lewis

Executive Education Leader, Senior Learning Executive

Working with Alicia was an amazing experience. She pushed me to ask myself challenging questions that surfaced limiting thoughts about myself and my potential. I am so grateful for our work together and would highly recommend partnering with her.

Went on to land an Executive Director role

Brooke December Watt

Global Brand & Product Executive

Working with Alicia Perkins was one of the most clarifying and empowering career investments I have made. She helped me articulate my values, refine my professional positioning, and align my next career move with both purpose and impact. Her ability to draw out clarity and confidence is unmatched.

Went on to land a VP of Product role

Yakema Moore

Senior HR Executive, C-Suite Advisory. Meta, Uber, Alight

Working with Alicia gave me far more than career positioning. It gave me renewed clarity and a strategic lens for how to position the depth of my experience with intention. I walked away with stronger clarity, refined direction, and a renewed sense of professional identity. I would recommend Alicia to any executive looking to sharpen their strategy and move forward with purpose.

Francena Dennis, MBA

Director of Business Operations, $100M+ Multi-Program Operation

It was a pleasure to work with Alicia in the positioning program. The frameworks she developed helped me pause, assess, and implement the right actions to stop proving and start positioning myself in my organization. It has been eye-opening and exceptionally accurate in helping leaders understand how their actions are being read by others.

Larcus N. Pickett

Senior Leader, Global Strategy, Policy & Partnerships

Alicia has a unique gift for asking the hard, but necessary, questions that push you to refine your thinking. Her thoughtful career analysis gave me the confidence to own my leadership strengths, and she offered language and framing that allowed me to position myself more effectively for the roles I was aiming for.

Chelsea Bullock

Product Strategy & Transformation, Enterprise Commercial Direction

Working with Alicia gave me the clarity and confidence to unstick myself. Her superpower is applying her own deep expertise to illuminate and elevate your own. Adding Alicia to your personal board of advisors is a no-brainer for anyone feeling stuck in their role or level.

Marie-Astrid Siransy, MSc

Chief Strategy Officer, Pension Fund Investment Director

I am extremely grateful for the exceptional support and guidance provided by Alicia. Her professionalism, brilliant insights, and meticulous handling of our agenda made my global career move incredibly smooth. If you are thinking about working with her, jump right in. You will not regret a minute.
What Changes

Shifts that are hard to get anywhere else

The first work is to correct that read, so you are finally seen at your level. What an accurate read makes possible depends on what you want. The right opportunities start finding you. You are treated at your level in the rooms that matter. And when the stakes are high, you have a trusted second mind to think with.

You stop guessing and start seeing.

You understand exactly how your expertise is being interpreted and what's creating that read. The guessing that kept you stuck is replaced with a precise diagnosis you can act on.

Your language starts carrying more weight.

How you talk about your work, your scope, and your judgment shifts in a way that changes how people respond to you. The shift comes from understanding what your words are actually signaling.

You start being seen differently in the rooms that matter.

The people deciding your future start to see you differently. The signals you're giving finally match the level you've been operating at, and that's what moves the read they've held on you.

You navigate high-stakes moments with precision.

The next promotion conversation, executive interview, board presentation, or stakeholder challenge doesn't feel like a gamble. You walk in knowing exactly how to position your expertise so it lands correctly.

Your positioning and optionality start to widen.

When the read shifts, what's available to you shifts with it. You gain room to maneuver in situations that felt fixed, and you walk into the conversations that shape promotions and compensation holding more leverage than before. The outcomes still depend on your organization and its timing, but you stop entering those moments from a position you didn't choose.

You develop a strategic lens you keep forever.

The way you see organizational dynamics, leadership evaluation, and perception patterns fundamentally changes. You stop being subject to the system and start understanding how to navigate it intentionally.

Who This Is For

Built for leaders already operating at significant scope

Typically leaders responsible for significant scope, budgets, and the decisions that move real outcomes. Regardless of what the title says.

You're right for this if

  • You already lead, but you keep getting read as the operator, and the recognition, authority, and compensation haven't caught up.
  • You keep getting close to the next level, but something unnamed keeps holding it back.
  • You're navigating a transition and need to make sure your expertise translates correctly into a new environment.
  • You have high-stakes moments ahead where how your judgment is interpreted will directly shape what opens up next.
  • You're tired of being told to work on yourself when you know the issue is how your work is being read.

You're not right for this if

  • You're early in your career and still building foundational skills.
  • You're looking for a traditional coaching program with weekly accountability.
  • You want someone to motivate you or hold your hand through implementation.
  • You need step-by-step career planning.

The people in this room are self-driven, experienced, and already operating at a high level. They have plenty of drive. What moves things for them is sharper interpretation and stronger positioning.

About the Founder
Alicia Perkins, founder of The Positioning House

Alicia Perkins

Founder of The Positioning House and author of The Executive Read: How Strategic Leaders Stop Being Overlooked.

She has spent seven years studying one specific pattern: why accomplished leaders get consistently underestimated by the systems and people around them.

Her work sits in a space most of the industry doesn't address. She helps leaders understand how their judgment, their authority, and the scope they carry are being interpreted, categorized, and valued, and what specifically changes that read.

Her frameworks have helped senior leaders break through promotion stalls, land executive roles, increase their compensation, and shift how their judgment is perceived inside Fortune 500 companies and high-growth organizations.

She put the foundation of this work into that book. The advisory is where that thinking goes further: applied privately, in real time, to your specific situation.

She built this room for one reason. She was tired of watching brilliant people get talked about as less than they are, in rooms they never get to enter.

The Investment

Two ways to work together

Both are fixed six-month engagements. One gives you the read and the language to move on your own. One puts me in it with you, in real time, through a specific decision happening now.

The Executive Read

$3,000

Introductory pricing

For the leader who needs to see clearly: an outside read on how your authority and scope are being categorized, and the specific moves that correct it.

  • Up to two private submissions each month, reviewed personally by Alicia
  • A monthly group advisory session
  • Full access to the Executive Read Library for the full term
  • Full access to the Executive Language System, the custom interactive tool that gives you the exact words for the rooms that decide your trajectory
  • Where your situation calls for it, your Executive Read Positioning Map: a personalized diagnostic of how your leadership is currently being categorized and where the correction starts
  • A peer room curated for leaders carrying real organizational scope
Apply for the Advisory

The Executive Read: Strategic Thought Partner

$7,500

For the leader inside a specific high-stakes moment right now: a promotion campaign, a comp negotiation, a transition. I work the positioning with you in real time, through the decision, until it lands.

  • Everything in The Executive Read
  • Direct access to Alicia by voice note and text for the full six-month engagement. A trusted strategic mind in your back pocket, available for the moves that cannot wait for the next session
  • A private session before we begin to map your exact situation, so your first positioning move is already clear before you need to make it
  • Real-time positioning on the conversations as they happen: the email before you send it, the room before you walk in, the number before you say it
  • I stay in it with you from the first move through the outcome, not just the read
Apply for the Advisory

Apply or request a consultation first. There is no obligation, and every application is reviewed personally by Alicia.

After You Apply

What happens next

The application exists so the room stays right for everyone in it. It's how I make sure the people you're sitting alongside are operating at your level. It's also how I make sure this is genuinely the right fit for you. Here's exactly how it works once you reach out.

01

Submit your application

You tell me where you are, what you're navigating, and how you want people to start seeing you. This isn't a form to fill out for the sake of it. It's my first look at whether this room is right for you.

02

I review it personally

Within two business days, you'll hear back from me directly on whether your application is approved. This is a curated room, so not every application is a fit, and that's intentional.

03

Enroll or talk first

If you're approved, you can enroll immediately and begin, or schedule a consultation with me first if you'd rather talk it through before you commit.

Questions

Frequently asked

The Executive Read Advisory

A room built for leaders who deserve to be read as the strategists they already are.

6 months of access. Private submissions. Monthly advisory sessions. Full access to the Executive Read Library for the full six-month term.

Apply for the Advisory