I’ve been doing this work for a long time. And if I’m being honest with myself, I’ve been terrible at talking about it.
Holmes Consulting Group — HCGi — has been operating since 2021. In that time I’ve done discovery sprints for federal agencies, advised startups on their first serious technical decisions, coached engineering leaders building out their organizations, and helped government agencies figure out what was actually broken before they spent money fixing the wrong thing.
But the website? The positioning? The story of what HCGi actually does?
Not great.
Today that changes.
Why Now
Last Monday morning I was at a breakfast during Arizona Tech Week — a session called Advice for Startup Advisors, featuring longtime ecosystem advisors Michelle Howard, Noreen Scheu, and Eric Miller from PADT and the Arizona Commerce Authority.
Something Eric said stopped me cold. He drew a clear distinction between mentoring and advising — and the difference isn’t about seniority or experience. It’s about the focus of the work.
A mentor helps you navigate your journey. An advisor helps you with your problem.
That landed differently than I expected. Because when I thought honestly about the work I do and the work I want to do — it’s not about helping your startup scale. It’s about making sure you’re working on the right problem in the first place. Making the right hire. Choosing the right technical approach. Growing both the impact your product has on your end users’ lives and the careers of the people building it. And when things have gone sideways — helping you get delivery back on track.
That’s not mentoring. That’s advising. That’s consulting. And that’s exactly what HCGi does.
Sitting in that room I also realized something uncomfortable: I’d been doing this work for years without a clear public story about any of it. I didn’t even have a website that said what I actually do.
So I rebuilt everything. New brand, new site, new articulation of the offerings. And — maybe most importantly — a clear statement of the conviction that drives all of it:
The measure of good technology is whether it meets the needs of the people depending on it. Public sector or private, that standard doesn’t change.
That’s not new. That’s been true since I was at the help desk at the New York State Department of Social Services in 1996. It just took a Monday morning breakfast in Phoenix to get me to finally say it out loud on a website.
What HCGi Actually Does
The new site organizes the work into eight service areas. Let me walk through them the way I actually think about them — not as a menu, but as real problems I’ve solved.
Startup technical advisory — Founders are making decisions that will define their company before they realize they’re making them. Product-market fit. First architecture choices. Early hires. The path to delivery. I help founders navigate those moments at every phase — from pre-product all the way through scaling.
Fractional delivery executive — Some organizations need executive-level technical leadership but aren’t ready for a full-time hire. That’s where I come in. CTO, VP of Product Delivery, CIO — whatever the situation calls for. I step in, do the work, and stay long enough to actually change something.
Organizational and delivery transformation — Organizations outgrow the way they work before they realize it’s happening. Processes that worked at ten people break at fifty. Delivery models built for one product fail with three. I help figure out what’s actually broken and build the path forward without tearing apart what’s still working.
Engineering organization design — High-performing engineering organizations don’t happen by accident. They’re built deliberately — team structure, hiring practices, delivery culture, and the leadership development that sustains the organization past any one person. This includes hands-on mentoring and coaching for technical leaders who are making the shift from individual contributor to executive.
Digital modernization — I work alongside the technical leaders already inside the organization, not above them. Helping them build the strategy, make the case internally, and sequence the work. Modernization fails when it’s handed down from above or driven by outside vendors with no stake in the outcome.
Discovery sprints — Before you build, buy, or modernize: do you know what’s actually broken? I’ve written about discovery sprints before because I believe in them that much. An 8–12 week engagement to find the root cause — not the symptoms — before committing budget to the wrong solution.
Government and public sector advisory — Government technology has its own rules. Procurement cycles, funding constraints, compliance requirements, and organizational dynamics that most technologists never encounter. I’ve been on both sides of that table. For agencies, I help structure the procurement and ensure delivery reaches constituents. For vendors, I help translate what you’ve built into language government buyers understand.
Board and executive advisory — Technology decisions made at the board and executive level carry consequences that compound for years. I help translate between the technical and the strategic — pressure-testing strategy, evaluating vendors, navigating leadership transitions — so decisions get made with clarity, not just confidence.
Who I’m Building This For
Four types of organizations. I try to be honest about which ones I’m actually useful to.
- Startup founders making their first serious technical bets
- Engineering leaders building the organizations their teams need to scale
- Government agencies modernizing systems that serve real constituents
- Product companies navigating delivery challenges, organizational complexity, or modernization
The thing they all have in common: the decisions they’re making right now will compound. I’ve seen what happens when those decisions go well and when they don’t. That’s the pattern recognition HCGi brings to every engagement.
The Brand
I also want to say something about the visual rebrand — because I’m genuinely proud of it and it means something to me.
The new mark is clean. Black, white, and teal — the teal i is a small thing that I love because it signals something: this isn’t just a firm name, it’s a point of view. The i stands for impact, for the individual, for the people the technology is supposed to reach.
The tagline we landed on: Technology strategy and advisory. Public sector depth. Private sector range.
That’s the whole thing, really. Thirty years across both worlds. That range is what makes the work different.
Where to Find Us
The new site is live at hcgi.io. Take a look — and if anything resonates, reach out at contact@hcgi.io.
And if you’re navigating an inflection point — a decision that’s going to compound for better or worse — I’d genuinely like to hear about it.
The geek speaks. And now, finally, so does the business.
A note on how this came together: The new brand, website, positioning, and offerings were all developed in collaboration with Claude — Anthropic’s AI. Claude was a genuine creative and strategic partner throughout: helping articulate the positioning, wordsmithing copy through dozens of iterations, building and refining the website, and generating the brand assets. I provided the direction, the decisions, and the lived experience. Claude helped me find the words and build the thing. That felt worth acknowledging — because the future of this kind of work is going to involve partnerships like this one, and I think we should be honest about that.