CEOs of nonprofits and founder-led businesses bring me the same two problems, over and over. Their message isn’t landing the way their organization’s actual value deserves, or their strategy has grown so complex that they’ve become the only person holding it together. I founded The Ashford Agency in Raleigh, North Carolina, to solve exactly those two problems — what I call message clarity and structural clarity.

My path here ran through nearly two decades of nonprofit leadership, fourteen of those years in executive roles, where I learned firsthand what it costs an organization when its message is muddy or its structure depends entirely on the person at the top. I hold a Ph.D. and have written nine books. I’m a certified StoryBrand Guide, trained in the messaging framework created by Donald Miller, and I’m the advisor behind the Small Business Flight Plan® and Nonprofit Flight Plan™, frameworks that help leaders see their entire organization — leadership, marketing, sales or donor engagement, products or programs, operations, and cash flow — as one integrated system instead of six disconnected departments.

Beyond client work, I have spoken and written regularly for national media, and I’ve composed speeches for leaders navigating high-stakes moments of their own. All of it comes back to the same conviction: clear thinking produces disciplined strategy, and disciplined strategy produces focused growth. That’s the work. I don’t see clients as accounts to manage. I see them as people carrying real weight, and I take that seriously.

Areas I write about: executive leadership, brand messaging and positioning, marketing strategy, sales and donor engagement, operations, and the practical implications of artificial intelligence for CEOs.

Based in: Raleigh, North Carolina Website: [theashfordagency.com] Credentials: Ph.D., certified StoryBrand Guide, certified Small Business Flight Plan® coach, creator of Nonprofit Flight Plan™, author of nine books, and ghostwriter of sixteen books.