Independent strategic consultancy · Critical friend
See what'sreally there.
Strategy for businesses, brands and organisations ready to move.
SLICE gets underneath the surface, challenging assumptions, finding the friction and turning insight into direction.
The problem
The problem isn't always the problem.
You think you need
more leads.
Maybe you're talking
to the wrong people.
You think you need
a new website.
Maybe you need
a clearer proposition.
You think you need
AI.
Maybe you need
to fix the process first.
You think you need
another campaign.
Maybe people don't
understand why you exist.
Introduction
We find the thing underneath the thing.
It is easy to get busy solving the problem everyone can see.
SLICE helps leaders step back, look differently and ask whether they are solving the right problem in the first place.
We combine strategic thinking, honest challenge, human insight and practical action to help organisations move with greater clarity.
We don't smooth edges.
We sharpen them.
Areas of work
Where we slice.
Business
& Strategy
For organisations that are moving, but aren't completely convinced they're moving in the right direction.
- Business strategy
- Growth strategy
- Proposition development
- Organisational direction
- Critical-friend consultancy
- Leadership thinking
- AI opportunity and readiness
- Strategic diagnostics
Brand
& Marketing
For organisations whose brand, proposition or marketing isn't connecting as powerfully as it should.
- Brand strategy
- Positioning
- Messaging
- Marketing strategy
- Campaign thinking
- Audience and customer journeys
- Creative direction
- Growth opportunities
Purpose
& Non-Profit
For organisations where the mission is powerful but strategy, income, engagement or growth needs sharpening.
- Non-profit strategy
- Fundraising strategy
- Partnerships
- Stakeholder engagement
- Church and faith-sector insight
- Campaign development
- Growth
- Organisational development
Projects
& Experiences
Complex things need clear heads. SLICE steps into projects with lots of moving parts and brings structure, strategic oversight and momentum.
- Complex project leadership
- Launches
- Events
- Live experiences
- Campaigns
- Partnerships
- Touring and artist projects
- Stakeholder coordination
The methodology
How we slice.
See.
We get underneath the surface to understand what is really going on.
Listen.
We hear the people, gaps, tensions and things that aren't being said.
Interrogate.
We challenge assumptions and expose the friction.
Create.
We turn insight into strategy, solutions and direction.
Evolve.
We help implement, adapt and keep moving forward.
One example, not the point
Before you add AI, ask a better question.
The question isn't simply "Where can we use AI?"
It's where technology can genuinely remove friction, improve thinking, strengthen teams or create better outcomes.
SLICE helps organisations understand where AI could make a meaningful difference, and where it won't.
Feature
The SLICE AI Diagnostic
A human-first strategic diagnostic designed to identify practical AI opportunities inside a business.
- 01Understand
- 02Identify friction
- 03Find opportunity
- 04Prioritise
- 05Activate
The critical friend
You don't need another person nodding.
Sometimes the most useful person in the room is the one willing to ask the question everyone else has stopped asking.
SLICE acts as a critical friend, close enough to understand the context, independent enough to challenge it.
- Clarity.
- Seeing the situation as it actually is.
- Challenge.
- Asking the question that has been avoided.
- Change.
- Turning the answer into movement.
"If you want praise, hire someone else."
About
Who's holding the knife?
Jess Monteiro
Founder / Strategist / Critical friend
Jess has worked across business growth, brand and marketing, non-profit leadership, fundraising, partnerships, strategy and complex live projects.
That range is deliberate. Crossing sectors and disciplines means she can enter a complicated environment, understand it quickly, and see how issues that look unrelated are usually connected.
It's a strategic advantage rather than a list of services: pattern recognition gathered in commercial, cultural and purpose-led settings, applied to whatever is actually getting in the way.
Placeholder biography, to be refined.
Work / proof
The cut changes things.
Case studies are being written. The structures below are content placeholders, no clients, results or testimonials have been invented.
Placeholder
Placeholder case study 01
- Client / organisation
- To be confirmed
- Challenge
- The problem as it was first described
- What SLICE saw
- The problem underneath the problem
- What changed
- The shift in direction
- Work delivered
- Strategy, tools, output
- Outcome
- To be added with the client
Placeholder
Placeholder case study 02
- Client / organisation
- To be confirmed
- Challenge
- The problem as it was first described
- What SLICE saw
- The problem underneath the problem
- What changed
- The shift in direction
- Work delivered
- Strategy, tools, output
- Outcome
- To be added with the client
Placeholder
Placeholder case study 03
- Client / organisation
- To be confirmed
- Challenge
- The problem as it was first described
- What SLICE saw
- The problem underneath the problem
- What changed
- The shift in direction
- Work delivered
- Strategy, tools, output
- Outcome
- To be added with the client
Let's slice through it.