Strategic counsel, in the room with the board.
The strategic question is rarely about analysis. It is about what the board, the chief executive, and the management team decide to do with the analysis once it lands.
Cohen Capital Markets advises principals, boards, and management teams on strategic decisions that shape the next chapter of the company — competitive positioning, market entry, portfolio rationalization, capital allocation, and long-range planning. The work is partner-led and structured to operate alongside the management team, not to replace it.
Our engagements are deliberately scoped. The firm does not run multi-year transformations or staff secondments. We do the work that warrants senior judgment — and we hand the implementation back to the people who will live with the decision.
Six capabilities, all partner-led.
Competitive Positioning
Where the firm plays and how it wins, set against the actual posture of the named competitors — not the posture the deck claims for them. The output is a defensible answer to the strategic question.
Market Entry & Expansion
Geographic and adjacent-segment entry decisions — sized to the company's capital base, sequenced against the competitive response, and tested against the partner-level judgment of what the entry actually costs.
Portfolio Rationalization
What the company should own, what it should shed, and the order in which it should do both. Divestiture sequencing, hold-or-sell calls, and the capital release math that sits behind the answer.
Capital Allocation Frameworks
A framework the chief executive and CFO can use over time — not a single recommendation. Returns thresholds, reinvestment hurdles, buyback discipline, and the governance the framework requires to hold.
Board & Management Advisory
Strategic counsel to boards, special committees, and chief executives at moments where independent perspective is the load-bearing input — strategic reviews, succession planning, and pivot decisions.
Strategic Planning Facilitation
Annual and three-year planning cycles where the firm operates as the independent facilitator — surfacing the strategic disagreement inside the team and getting it resolved on the record before it becomes operational drift.
Six steps, partner-led throughout.
The pattern below is the firm's standing engagement structure for a strategic review. Each step is a partner deliverable; analyst work supports under partner supervision.
Strategic Situation Assessment
The honest read on where the company actually sits — competitive position, capital structure, management bandwidth, and the strategic clock. The conversation begins here.
Objective & Criteria Setting
What the engagement is solving for, agreed in writing with the chief executive or special committee. The criteria the answer must satisfy are set before the analysis begins.
Market & Competitive Analysis
Primary and secondary research on the named competitive set, sector dynamics, and the trajectory of the structural variables that govern the decision.
Strategic Options Development
Three to five strategic options, each fully costed and stress-tested against the partner's read of the competitive response. The options are real; one of them is the recommendation.
Recommendation & Facilitation
The recommendation to the board, the chief executive, or the special committee — and the facilitation of the decision conversation that follows. The partner is in the room.
Implementation Support
Targeted support through the first ninety days of execution. The firm does not staff implementation; we remain available as a sounding board to the chief executive and the board.
The three questions every strategic review should answer.
A strategic review that does not answer these three questions has not finished. The partner-brief discipline is to answer all three on the record, with the criteria set in advance and the trade-offs surfaced for the board to weigh.
Where do we play?
The honest definition of the firm's competitive arena — markets, segments, geographies, customer profiles. The temptation is to claim the larger arena; the discipline is to claim only the one where the firm has a defensible right to win.
How do we win?
The specific basis of competitive advantage in the arena named in (i). Cost, differentiation, network effect, regulatory perimeter, distribution — each named explicitly and tested against the named competitors, not against an idealized "market."
What do we own — and what do we shed?
Portfolio implication of the answer to (i) and (ii). What stays in the company because it earns its place; what leaves because it does not. The capital released funds the answer to "how we win."
Four common situations.
A founder considering whether to enter, exit, or restructure a business segment.
The capital is finite. The segment may not be carrying its weight. The decision sits between portfolio rationalization and a partial divestiture. The firm runs the diagnostic and authors the recommendation.
A board reviewing the strategic plan in a year when the prior plan no longer applies.
Market structure has shifted. The strategic plan written eighteen months ago is dated. The board wants an independent voice to reset the conversation before management produces the next draft.
A CFO designing a capital allocation framework for the next planning cycle.
The cash-generation profile is changing. The hurdle rate that worked last cycle does not apply. The CFO wants a framework — not a one-off recommendation — and a partner to test it against board priorities.
A management team contemplating an adjacent-segment expansion.
The new segment looks promising. The capital and management bandwidth required are real. The team wants an outside view on whether the expansion is the right move and, if so, the right sequence.
Read more from the firm.
Plainly answered.
How long does a typical strategic engagement run?
Most strategic engagements run eight to sixteen weeks from kickoff to recommendation. Implementation support, when retained, extends the engagement by a further ninety days. The firm does not staff multi-year transformations.
Will the firm displace our internal strategy team?
No. Engagements are structured to complement, not displace, internal management teams. The partner operates alongside the chief executive and the strategy lead; the analytical bench supports under partner supervision; the recommendation comes from the firm and the implementation stays with the company.
What does the engagement cost?
Strategic engagements are typically fixed-fee, sized to the scope agreed in the engagement letter, with no success-fee component when no transaction is contemplated. Fees are discussed transparently at the outset. We do not bill for time we did not work and we do not invoice for travel without prior approval.
Will the firm sign a non-disclosure agreement?
Yes — and we expect to. Every engagement, and every preliminary conversation that could become one, is conducted under the firm's standard of strict confidentiality, with or without a separate NDA. Our default is to sign the client's NDA on first request.