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invisible hurdle is a boutique advisory service, based in New York. 

Our Clients Include

Fortune 10 Companies Blue-chip Law Firms Major Banks Major League Soccer NBA GM’s NCAA Programs Fashion Houses TV Networks Public Officials C-Suite Executives Advertising Agencies Not-for-profit Leaders Individual Coaching

For you.
with you.
Together.

coaching to grow my business

Services

Our niche is transformation. We identify and provide 360 support for individuals and companies, at the key inflection points when a transition to a new working mode is going to add most value.

Transformation, by its nature, means that no two applications of our services are wholly alike, but there are categories of support where we provide consistent value:

  • • Cultural Audits

    • Due Diligence assessments

    • Leadership Change reports

    • Strategic reviews

    • Executive Bios

  • • Crisis Management

    • Job transitions

    • Interview/Negotiation Strategy

    • Values/Vision/Mission Alignment

  • • Vision and Mission planning

    • Strategic Plans

    • Data Strategy

    • Internal and External Communications Plans

    • Team Integration Plans

  • • Executive Coaching

    • Board Building and Monitoring

    • Corporate Dashboards

    • Leadership Development

    • Internship Programs

In short, we help our clients clear the visible and invisible hurdles to success.

From one-off interview tactics, to five-year strategies, we believe in making, adapting and implementing plans that work for our clients’ strengths, and that give them clear, authentic cues to follow at every step along the way — including the moments where they may have stumbled historically.

  • “Complex thought, simple solutions and clear direction.

    I originally connected with invisible hurdle seeking coaching on a specific issue I was facing in my career. They responded to my specialism and circumstances, but also helped me think about my broader thought patterns and approach to my work and career, in a way that gave me so much more. I got a vantage point for my professional development that was framed by a strategy for personal growth.”

    — Senior Vice-President, F10 Company

  • “I first worked with invisible hurdle when I was newly installed as Chief Defender in a large American city.

    They helped me navigate the politics of the job as it had been done, and simultaneously helped me define it as it could be done. When there were headwinds, I felt prepared for them, because we’d modeled every contingency, and I knew invisible hurdle were thinking about the political and personal capital needed to do the job, as much as I was. They consider everything from every angle in the time available, but when it’s time to act they’re there with you to execute a plan. I was able to advance a community-driven justice system that has become the standard for Chief Defenders across the country, and invisible hurdle were there throughout, always asking ‘What’s next?’”

    — Former chair of American Council of Chief Defenders

  • “There’s a distinction between an executive coach who adds technique and sends you back out there, and one who you feel is in the room with you at all times.

    It became a natural extension of the relationship to include invisible hurdle in my strategic planning, and eventually to bring them in to work directly with my CEO on producing a company-wide dashboard. They go from macro-concepts to technical execution seamlessly.”

    — Head of Strategy, Financial products company with $200bn portfolio

our process is simple and collaborative

Clients work directly with at least one Principal on every project, though all members of the team may contribute, depending on the challenge.

executive coaching
business coach

Our executive team represent collective decades of experience observing, leading and transforming within major institutions of business, law, politics, sports, academia and culture.

We have the range to quickly build a pleasurable, honest rapport with all clients. Generous collaborators, we are enthusiastic, knowledgeable, curious and appropriately irreverent.

business think tank
Business growth with a coach

We continually ask questions — approaching every challenge from multiple angles in search of the bedrock certainty a client needs to solve fearlessly and effectively.

We respect specialists, and ourselves maintain an intimate network of trusted data, communications, business law, design, and DEI experts, selected to augment our core team as needed.

We strive to deliver what is necessary, as well as what is urgent.

  • “A friend who’d worked with them said, ‘Trust me — I have the people for you.”

    I was skeptical, because my sector is plagued with well-meaning outsiders thinking they know best for my clients. But from the start they gave me the space and respect I’d earned as an expert in my field and concentrated on the broader dynamics of problem-solving and planning. They always helped me feel like the owner of my own plans, even though I couldn’t have produced them in that form without them. I felt empowered, not criticized. I owe my friend dinner…”

    — CEO, 501(c) Non-profit

  • “My secret weapon! We worked together first during my interview process for an opportunity to lead a major tech company division.

    With a keen understanding of my personal and professional goals, they guided my preparation process, to give me an expansive plan for all contingencies — I saw myself and the path(s) ahead with utter clarity. The interview itself became a true dialogue and the advance preparation also opened me up to seeing new potential within my existing firm, where I now lead a global division. invisible hurdle showed me how to assess my full value proposition, and in turn how to teach others how to see me.”

    — Managing Director, Fortune50 US Bank

  • “If you just want incremental growth, go elsewhere.

    If you want transformational growth, work with invisible hurdle.”

    — Equity Partner, Major Law Firm, and Big10 NCAA booster

Why and when you should work with us

On occasion we’ve been called in when consultancies with larger companies have faltered. We’re confident our assessments, market-driven insights, strategies and deliverables compare favorably with anyone else in the marketplace.

Where we excel is in calibrating our definitions of problems and the ensuing solutions. We do so with a rare degree of sensitivity to the unique context and potential of our clients, and with availability and responsiveness throughout the process of implementation. 

Choosing the right thought partner requires trust.

We love a blank page. We love a heavily-crossed out one. Often value is found in solving problems others have found intractable — or simply in identifying that a more foundational problem must be solved first.

We go as deep as our clients need us to — even to the core of their vision and values, if that’s what is required to identify the right destinations or waypoints and help our clients consistently reach them.

We are effective at any stage of a project.

We aren’t pro forma “diagnose/prescribe” consultants. Whatever point we are brought on board, we are committed, rigorous and precise in framing and populating a map and illustrating an optimum route for our clients — then walking it with them for as long as our company is of value.

We adapt to our clients’ specific terrain as trusted fellow travelers, who monitor the trajectory of our clients throughout implementation, and who commit to refining it until it’s optimum for their unique journey. 

We design truly bespoke solutions.

We are proud to have grown our business almost exclusively on personal recommendations from other clients. However our clients come to us, though, we treat them as we would friends of good friends — honoring confidence placed in us and seeking to help in ways that reinforce mutual respect and discretion.

We’re not for everyone, but we’ve found that the people and companies we are for are for us emphatically, because they experience transformational change first hand.

Experience transformational
change first hand.

executive coach
George Flowers

George Flowers


FOUNDER

George founded invisible hurdle after a career in the legal, business, and not-for-profit sectors that followed his service as a Marine Corps officer. A graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law, whose professional experience includes working as a Paul Weiss deal attorney, as assistant to the Brooklyn District Attorney, and as a not-for-profit CEO, George is relentless in pursuit of the true bedrock of a challenge. 

Throughout his career, George’s experiences working with outside consultants led him to believe that many organizations and individuals seek external help without internal clarity on the help they actually need, and that the resulting diagnostic solutions inevitably feel generic and struggle for traction in practice. He felt there was value to be found for leaders, and aspiring leaders, in first aligning on purpose, then building solutions that are fit for purpose. In founding invisible hurdle, George began to build a team with the breadth of experience and perspective to help clients solve questions of vision, and with the technical ability to design and maintain each mission in pursuit of that vision.

Graham Parker

Graham Parker

Graham is a strategist and communications specialist whose experience includes executive roles in Major League sports, international journalism, visual arts and academia. Before joining invisible hurdle he worked as a Senior Director of Strategy for Major League Soccer team Chicago Fire FC, following a career as an international journalist whose bylines appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Guardian, Al Jazeera America, Vice, ESPN and Grantland, among others. 

Graham’s artwork exploring technology and society has been the subject of solo shows in London, New York, Dublin, and Manchester and is held in the British Government Art Collection. He is the author of the book Fair Use (notes from spam) and a two-time alum of the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program, in Studio Practice and Architecture and Urbanism.

Graham’s work rigorously allies strategy with culture, in the belief that a great plan on paper will fail without conviction, just as surely as a feel-good environment without a true sense of purpose and discipline will drift into trouble. He works with clients to establish what “best practice” truly means for them and helps leaders inspire their staff to follow as one.

Al Harrison

Al Harrison

Al is an academic and lawyer, who studied history and African-American studies at Harvard University, before pursuing graduate studies in law and history at Yale University — where he also taught writing. He brings deep critical analysis and engagement to illuminate any subject, and is a key player in building conceptual and structural integrity into frameworks that guide invisible hurdle solutions.

Prior to joining invisible hurdle, Al worked as an attorney at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton, & Garrison LLP. and served as an educational consultant with the New York City Board of Education, primarily in the areas of school design, educational equity, and community engagement.

Al holds a black belt in Ju-Jitsu from the world-renowned Marcelo Garcia.

  • “It’s one thing to describe problems as opportunities, it’s another to have the command to act effectively on that assumption.

    George makes it his business to truly understand the problem before proposing a precise solution. He has the rare tenacity and sense of conviction to hold your trust as he takes the “engine” apart, labels the pieces, then consistently reassembles them into something more powerful. ”

    — Former Under Secretary, United States Department of Defense

  • “Graham has an uncanny ability to see and connect more dots than just about anyone.

    Importantly he’s able to articulate the relation between and among vision, mission, values, goals across all facets of an organization and its business. He’s able to bring to life, in real terms, with deep impact, a company’s soul on its particular journey.”

    — Former team President, current C-Suite executive at Major League Sports HQ

  • “Al has an amazing eye for detail and nuance.

    He helped me work on a DEI article that became both a compelling argument and a deeply considered program for implementation, as Al had guided me through each potential implication with logical clarity about every detail. By the time we were through I had more than a deeply considered position, I had conviction.”

    — Deputy Lead Counsel, 2500 person legal group