Your Personal Sparring Partner.
For brand & marketing leaders.
Your brand has an agency. Your campaign has a team. But who works on you?
The higher you climb, the quieter it gets. Numbers are fine, the board is happy, the team delivers. And that's exactly when honest feedback stops. Your team sees the boss. Your boss sees the numbers. Nobody sees where YOU could go next.
That's why every top athlete has a team AND a personal sparring partner. Consider me yours: we fight for your next level. Faces intact – most of the time. ;-)
Here’s what you get:
🥊 A sparring partner who knows your business and position
👊🏽 Someone who challenges you beyond the day-to-day
❓ The overdue questions nobody inside your company asks you
🔒 A space outside the org, where vulnerabilities turn into growth
🧠 A second brain for the strategic topics you never get to
Three principles of the program.
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![Green neon hourglass icon — symbol for time efficiency and fast delivery in brand strategy, brand identity, and brand playbook projects by Jan Berndt.]()
1. Get challenged.
Growth ends when feedback stops. Sparring brings it back: honest questions, real pushback, and a partner in crime who knows your business.
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![Green neon brain icon — creativity and strategic thinking in brand identity, brand playbooks, and marketing by freelance brand strategist Jan Berndt.]()
2. Think out loud.
Ideas for where you want to go, doubts about how to get there: ping-pong all of it with someone who has been there and has no stake in the outcome.
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3. Come as you are.
There is enough pressure in your calendar already. This is the space to rediscover the best version of yourself again to see what's possible.
“Jan’s strategic strength is unrivaled. He combines experience with emotional intelligence. On top of that it’s always fun to think, develop, and discuss with him.”
— Nadia Schmitt // Managing Partner & former Group Head Business Marketing
Because I've been you.
Why me?
For twenty years, brand and marketing have been my job: as Head of Brand in a large corporation, in leadership roles at agencies, and for most of that time as an independent strategist working side by side with marketing leaders. Budget rounds, board decks, reorgs, and the Sunday Scaries before the Monday meeting. I know what's on your calendar, because it was on mine.
And that calendar burned me out twice. Successful on paper, stuck pretty much everywhere else. The second time I stopped pushing through and made the call to unstuck my own life, with every trade-off that came with it: therapy, divorce, letting an old version of me go, and starting from scratch.
What came out of it is an intercontinental lifestyle, partly based in Bali, with meditation, fitness and active recovery as fixed parts of my week and a much sharper sense of what actually counts in life. This is the foundation I work from today, and it makes me a better sparring partner than the corporate years alone ever could.
Growth on speed dial. Sparring on retainer.
How it works.
A fixed slot every week, plus me in your corner in between: for the questions that can't wait, the decisions you want to think through with a partner in crime: I take it with me and bring back a fresh perspective on an old problem. Outside your org, outside your agency: what happens between us stays between us.
Curious what sparring could do for you? During a quick 15-min Discovery Espresso, we'll spot where you're stuck, feel out the vibe, and explore how sparring could fit into your busy life.
☕ Book your Discovery Espresso now.
No strings attached, just ideas brewing.