Strategic Ascent
Strategic Planning & Execution for Mid-Market Companies
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What Is Strategic Ascent
Strategic Ascent™ is a disciplined strategic planning system for mid-market CEOs and their leadership teams.
It combines a proven planning process, experienced facilitators who are former CEOs and senior operators, and a structured execution cadence — all while building the team's internal capability to think and plan strategically.
Designed by Katahdin Group and refined over 20 years and 200+ engagements, Strategic Ascent™ is not the strategy — it is the system for creating it. The executive team develops and owns the plan, while Katahdin Group serves as educator, trainer, and facilitator — teaching the discipline of strategic planning and guiding the process to ensure alignment, clarity, and follow-through.
The Problem
Most CEOs believe strategic planning is important. Fewer are confident in their process and plan.
In a recent survey of CEOs, the pattern was unmistakable. Leaders rate the idea of strategic planning and their team's enthusiasm to participate in it highly. How effective they feel their current plan is, and how satisfied they are with their process, is where the numbers fall off.
7.8 / 10 — Opinion of strategic planning
6.9 / 10 — Enthusiasm to participate
5.7 / 10 — Effectiveness of current plan
5.5 / 10 — Satisfaction with the process
Source: Golden Dome Associates, Strategic Ascent™ Program Growth Phase Survey
The Diagnosis
Strategic plans don't fail randomly. They break in three predictable places.
Most planning processes focus on developing the formal strategy and ignore the three tensions that actually dictate whether it sticks.
The System
Strategic Ascent is not an offsite. It's a system that teaches a CEO and their team to overcome these tensions.
Built over two decades with our CEO clients, Strategic Ascent is a disciplined planning system supported by three structural pillars. Each one is designed to resolve one of the three tensions that break most strategies.
Pillar One — Solves the Collaboration Tension
Shared Ownership
A strategic plan only has real impact when your leadership team genuinely owns it. Without ownership, momentum fades, focus slips, and the time you invested is wasted. Ownership doesn't happen in the room. It happens in the weeks before.
By the time everyone walks in, the groundwork is in place. The team shows up as co-owners, not spectators. Your facilitator is seen as neutral, not the CEO's consultant. Skepticism drops, and the plan that gets built is one the team actually carries out.
Pillar Two — Solves the Alignment Tension
Rigorous Process
Most leadership teams know how to debate. What they're often missing is a structured way to decide. Without that structure, agendas runover and tradeoffs get avoided. Strategic Ascent is built around a disciplined process that forces real decisions.
The final goals are a synthesis. Some are brought to the table by the CEO, some by the team, some emerge through debate, and the final list is usually aligned with where the CEO came in believing the business should head. The difference is that the team has now been part of stress-testing every goal, and the plan they commit to is one they own together. That is why the plan holds after everyone leaves the room.
Pillar Three — Solves the Accountability Tension
Execution Discipline
Creating the plan is only part of the work. The real test is what happens in the months after. Leadership teams often leave the offsite aligned on the goals and energized to execute them. But within six months, operational urgency takes over the calendar and the plan stops driving decisions. It becomes the binder on the shelf, collecting dust. Strategic Ascent is designed to prevent that.
The Facilitators
Facilitators who've sat in your seat.
Every Strategic Ascent facilitator is a former CEO or senior operator. They've built plans under pressure, made the hard tradeoffs, and lived with the consequences.
That experience shows up the moment they walk into your company. They push your team without posturing, challenge assumptions without grandstanding, and read a room well enough to know when a team has reached real alignment, and when there's more work to do to get there.
They bring a point of view, informed by decades of operating experience. But they don't bring the answers. The answers come from your team. Their job is to make sure the right questions get asked, the real tensions get named, and the decisions that need to be made actually get made.
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The Outcomes
Outcomes earned through structure.
Our Position
We don't sell strategy. We give you the system to build it, and the structure to execute it.
Most strategy consultants want to sell you their answer to what your strategy should be. We don't. We don't claim to know what your strategy should be, and we don't hand you a plan and walk away.
What we bring is the process. Refined across more than 200 engagements over two decades, with CEOs and leadership teams who had to make it work in the real world. We bring that system into your company, guide your team through it, and stay close enough to keep it alive once the offsite is over.
A plan your team believes in, and a system to drive it forward.
Strategic Goals
Strategic goals are not business as usual.
Strategic planning should produce a small number of goals that represent a meaningful shift in where your business is headed. Transformational goals that earn their place by the size of the impact they can create.
Why This Is Hard to Do Alone
Why this is hard to do alone.
Most CEOs have tried to run strategic planning themselves, or asked someone on their team to run it for them. It rarely produces what they need, and not because the people involved aren't capable.
The Engagement
Our proven seven-phase process.
Successful strategic planning and alignment starts long before the offsite. By the time all members of the executive team arrive around the strategy table, much of the hardest work should be complete.
Questions CEOs ask before starting.
What Strategic Ascent is, who it's for, and how engagements typically work. If your question isn't here, reach out and we'll answer it directly.
Strategic Ascent is a disciplined strategic planning system for mid-market CEOs and their leadership teams. It combines a proven planning process, seasoned facilitators who are former CEOs and senior operators, and a structured cadence for executing the plan through the year. It was developed by Katahdin Group and has been refined across more than 200 implementations over two decades.
Strategic Ascent is built for mid-market CEOs and their leadership teams who take strategic planning seriously but aren't satisfied with the results they're getting. It works best for companies where the leadership team is willing to invest the time to do planning properly, and where the CEO wants a plan the team genuinely owns rather than a plan they simply comply with.
Traditional strategy consultants try to sell you their answer to what your strategy should be. Strategic Ascent doesn't. We don't claim to know what your strategy should be. What we bring is the system that helps your leadership team build it together and the discipline to make sure the plan gets executed. The strategy is yours. The process is ours.
The core planning phase runs from the first CEO conversation through the offsite itself, which typically takes several weeks of preparation followed by a two-day or four-day offsite. Beyond that, Strategic Ascent continues through the year with regular strategy days, scorecard reviews, and ongoing facilitator support. The system is designed to sustain the plan through at least one full operating cycle.
Every Strategic Ascent facilitator is a former CEO or senior operator. They've built plans under pressure, made the hard tradeoffs, and lived with the consequences. That experience lets them push the team without posturing, challenge assumptions without grandstanding, and read the room well enough to know when a team has reached real alignment and when there's more work to do.
The offsite is the beginning, not the end. After the offsite, the leadership team reconvenes on regular strategy days set on the calendar in advance. Every goal has a clear owner. An Internal Process Owner protects the cadence inside the company. A one-page scorecard tracks progress. Your facilitator stays close, supporting the first strategy days and reinforcing the discipline until it becomes part of how the leadership team operates.
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