ON BEING LEADERSHIP ADVISORY
Who you are
is how you lead.
You've outgrown the version of yourself that got you here, and you can feel it.
You got here by being good at things. Now the job demands something different. It might be your first team, a mandate twice the size, a company growing faster than you are, or a board that wants a different kind of leader. It might be the quieter question of whether this is still the path, and whether you still feel like yourself walking it.
I'm Marisa Lucchesi. I work one-to-one with leaders in the middle of becoming the next version of themselves.
WHAT I BELIEVE
When you feel solid, the hard parts of the job, the politics included, stop costing you yourself.
Every real step in a career asks you to become someone new. Most leadership help works on what you do in those moments. I work on who's doing it. The identity shifts first, and the rest follows.
Sound familiar?
Your title hasn't changed. Your job has. AI took over the work you were known for, and you're not sure what you're known for now.
It's 4:47 a.m. You're awake, running tomorrow's conversation for the third time, and the alarm hasn't gone off yet.
The company is growing faster than you are. Every fix lands back on your desk, and you're starting to suspect the bottleneck is you.
You're good at your job. You're tired of being good at your job. Both can be true.
Private equity bought the company. The timeline got shorter, the revenue goal multiplied, and the leader you were praised for being last year now looks like cost.
You don't quite feel like yourself anymore. Nothing dramatic. Just a sense that something basic has slipped out of balance, and it's been that way too long to ignore.
None of this means you're doing it wrong. Much of it isn't about you at all. But it's landing on you, and it's changing who you need to be. That goes better with someone in your corner who isn't your boss, your board, your partner, or your group chat.
WHAT WORKING TOGETHER IS LIKE
You bring one thing.
We start there.
It might be the decision you keep circling, the conversation you're dreading, or the job you can't make up your mind about. You talk for a while, and I listen for what you're not saying. Then I ask the question you've been steering around, and we work from there.
You leave with something concrete: a decision, a next step, or a sentence you'll actually use on Monday.
Clients tell me the first thing that changes is small. They stop rehearsing conversations in the car. They decline the meeting they used to accept. They stop waiting to feel ready.
FOR COMPANIES
Sponsoring a leader you believe in?
One person working closely with them through the hard part. Scoped with you, confidential to them.
IN THEIR WORDS
“Marisa is a superstar. […] she's special because of her subtleties you won't find in a resume or LinkedIn profile: compassionate, self-aware, a clear communicator, and a natural leader.”
— Tim Krozek · managed Marisa · ex-Netscape, Yahoo, AOL“No matter what job department you work in, what role you have on your team, or what exposure you have with her, Marisa will make your life better. Simple as that. She is one of the most intelligent, ambitious, and empathetic leaders I know, and she consistently elevates anyone who comes into her orbit through her own sheer brilliance. I would never bet against Marisa.”
— Ben Geffner · Research DirectorWHY ME
For years, my job had a second job inside it. I was the buffer between the C-suite and the people doing the work.
I absorbed pressure in both directions so the team could succeed, and I spent real hours on work whose main purpose was making us look better than we were. I was good at it. It was also wearing me down. I left this year to build what I needed then: a place to work on who you are as a leader, not just what you do.
