Leadership in one paragraph
The firm is run by a managing partner, five practice leads (EA Negotiation, Audit Defense, M365 & Copilot, Azure & MACC, True-Up & Optimization), a research director, and a chief operating officer. Every leader has 15+ years of operational Microsoft licensing experience in the relevant SKU family. Leadership is described by role on this page rather than by named individual photo gallery — a deliberate decision explained below — and the named leader of any given engagement is introduced during the 30-minute scoping call. The firm carries no Microsoft Partner Network status of any kind. The compensation model is buyer-paid fixed fee or success fee; there is no second revenue stream from Microsoft.
Why we describe leadership by role, not by named photo gallery
Most professional services firms publish a leadership page with names, headshots and biographies. We deliberately do not. The reason is operational: in adversarial Microsoft EA negotiation the named buyer-side counterparty becomes a personal attack surface for Microsoft's account team — a relationship-management vector, an executive escalation target, and a backchannel that Microsoft's commercial machinery is structurally built to exploit. We have watched competing advisory firms whose named leadership pages became LinkedIn targets for Microsoft account-team outreach within 48 hours of a client signing an engagement letter; we refuse to give Microsoft that surface. Firm-level E-E-A-T — Est. 2016, 500+ engagements, $2.1B managed, 32% average reduction, the credentials documented across the team page and the published research the firm produces — is what carries our credibility. The named partner who would lead your engagement is introduced live on the scoping call.
Leadership roles
Managing Partner
Sets firm strategy, signs every engagement letter, holds the conflict-checks register and runs partner compensation. Background: 20+ years across Microsoft channel and procurement, including senior commercial roles at two of the global top-10 LSPs and a buyer-side EA program leadership role inside a Fortune 100 manufacturer. The Managing Partner is the named counterparty on the firm's master engagement letter and the escalation point for any client.
Practice Lead — Enterprise Agreement Negotiation
Owns the EA Negotiation practice and the firm's adversarial negotiation methodology. Background: 18 years in the Microsoft channel, including a Commercial Director role inside a top-five LSP where they ran EA renewals on the partner side of 80+ enterprise accounts before crossing over to buyer-side independent advisory. Personal experience with Microsoft's level-pricing (A/B/C/D) playbook, anniversary True-Up tactics, Reduced Base Inventory mechanics at renewal, and EA-to-MCA-Enterprise migration economics.
Practice Lead — Microsoft Audit Defense
Owns the firm's Microsoft Verification and SAM-engagement defense methodology. Background: former senior Microsoft Software Asset Management specialist with first-hand experience running audits from Microsoft's side of the table for over a decade. Personal expertise in contractual audit clause interpretation, deployment data submission strategy, SAM script forensics, finding-stack negotiation and Microsoft Verification settlement structure. The Audit Defense Practice Lead also owns the firm's SPLA audit defense work.
Practice Lead — Microsoft 365 & Copilot Advisory
Owns the M365 SKU optimization practice, the Copilot for M365 deployment economics methodology and the firm's response to the 2026 commercial inflection points: the E7 Frontier bundle, the M365 tier consolidation, the Copilot Studio four-mechanism billing model, the Defender P1 step-up into M365 E3, the Intune Suite integration into E5, and the new Agent 365 entitlement framework. Background: 16 years in modern-work licensing including six years inside an LSP M365 specialist team and four years in an enterprise CIO-office role.
Practice Lead — Azure & MACC Advisory
Owns the firm's Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC) negotiation practice, the Azure Hybrid Benefit (AHB) and BYOL portfolio strategy, Reserved Instance and Savings Plan modeling, and the new Microsoft Fabric capacity allocation methodology. Background: 15 years across cloud cost engineering and Azure commercial structuring, including a senior role inside one of the global top-three Microsoft cloud solution providers before moving to independent advisory.
Practice Lead — True-Up, Compliance & License Optimization
Owns the annual True-Up forensic methodology, dual-use rights analysis, qualified user/device modeling and the structural license-position reconciliation work between EA anniversaries. Background: former Fortune 500 senior IT procurement manager who personally ran a $40M Microsoft EA on the buyer side for nine years, including three audits and two renewals. The True-Up Practice Lead also coordinates with the Audit Defense practice on Microsoft Verification engagements.
Research Director
Owns the firm's research function — the proprietary Microsoft pricing benchmark, the annual State of Microsoft Licensing survey, the 2026 EA Cost Increase Report, the Copilot Adoption Survey, and the data underpinning every counter-proposal the firm files. Background: 14 years in enterprise software research and benchmarking including senior analyst roles covering Microsoft commercial strategy. The Research Director is also the firm's spokesperson for press inquiries.
Chief Operating Officer
Runs engagement operations, the firm's conflict-checks register, the two-partner sign-off rule on every commercial document filed on a buyer's behalf, partner-level professional indemnity insurance, and the firm's internal Microsoft-knowledge curation. Background: 12 years in professional services operations including a senior operations role at a top-tier strategy consultancy before moving into Microsoft-focused advisory.
Governance and the two-partner rule
Every commercial document this firm files on a buyer's behalf is reviewed under a two-partner sign-off rule. No single practice lead files a counter-proposal, an audit response, a MACC structure recommendation or a Copilot deployment economics memo under their own name without a second senior partner reviewing the work. The rule is the structural reason engagement quality stays consistent across the practice and does not vary with which named partner happens to lead a given engagement. The Managing Partner holds the conflict-checks register and runs a quarterly review of all open engagements against any concurrent advisory relationships the firm holds that could touch the same EA.
The firm refuses engagements where it holds a concurrent advisory relationship with a Microsoft channel partner that would touch the same EA. The firm accepts no LSP referral fees, no Microsoft Partner Network rebates, and no commission income from any Microsoft channel partner. The firm carries professional indemnity insurance appropriate to large-EA negotiation engagements. The firm's legal entity is a buyer-side independent advisory firm with no Microsoft Partner status of any kind. Not affiliated with Microsoft Corporation.
$1.2B-revenue financial services firm · 14,000 users · Microsoft Verification audit · 2025. Audit Defense Practice Lead + Managing Partner co-led. Microsoft's opening finding was $8.7M in claimed unlicensed deployment; the closing settlement was $1.1M plus a future-state remediation plan (87.4% reduction). Two-partner sign-off applied on every document filed with Microsoft Verification during the 11-week engagement.
How leadership is appointed
Practice Leads are appointed by the Managing Partner on the recommendation of the senior partner group and are reviewed annually. The Managing Partner is appointed by the partner group and is reviewed every three years. The firm publishes no commission structure on senior leadership compensation because there is none; leaders are salaried plus practice-level profit distribution and there is no Microsoft-aligned commission, no LSP-aligned referral fee and no incentive that pays out when the firm sells more licensing to a buyer. The firm's economic interest aligns one direction only: with the buyer.
We do not appoint to leadership from current Microsoft commercial roles. There is a 24-month cooldown for any candidate moving directly from a Microsoft commercial or account-team role into our practice; the same cooldown applies before appointment to Practice Lead or Managing Partner. The cooldown exists because residual Microsoft confidentiality obligations and account-team relationships interfere with adversarial negotiation, and we treat that interference as a structural conflict.
Meet the senior leadership
30-minute scoping call with the senior partner who would lead your engagement. Fixed-fee proposal within five business days. Independent since 2016. Not affiliated with Microsoft Corporation.
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