By application
Before the engagement, a conversation.
Selection is for conviction, not credentials.
What follows is not an intake form. It is a short written assessment, read personally, used to understand the question you are actually navigating — and whether a private season of this work is the right shape for it.
For review
A short overview of the work, its structure and investment — for you or a colleague to review before applying.
After ninety days
What is different.
Ninety days in, the change is not that you are busier, sharper, or better resourced. It is that the decision you arrived with has been made — cleanly, on your own authority — and the next two or three behind it are already visible in outline. The internal noise that made the brief feel urgent has quieted; what remains is a steadier read of your own judgment, a thesis for the next decade you can defend in a single sentence, and the unmistakable sense that the compounding question is no longer what to do but who you are now becoming as the person making the call.
The arc
What happens after you submit.
Private review
Your application is read personally by Irene within seven days.
A conversation
If there is mutual fit, you are invited into a confidential conversation to understand the brief in depth.
Scoping
If we proceed, the engagement is privately scoped to your decision, cadence and arc — and shared in writing.
Application
Reviewed personally.
All applications are confidential. A response is offered within seven days.