Ticonderoga Advisory is a leadership and organizational development firm that helps organizations get more out of their people — and helps people get more out of their work. We work at the organizational level and the human level simultaneously, across executive search, executive coaching, leadership and management training, learning design, and talent advisory.

Executive coaching is a one-on-one engagement focused on an individual leader’s development — their effectiveness, their relationships, their decision-making, and how they show up in their role. Leadership training is typically delivered to groups and focuses on building specific skills or capabilities across a cohort. Coaching goes deeper on the individual; training scales across a population. Many organizations use both: training to build a common language and baseline capability, coaching to develop specific leaders at critical moments. Executive coaching is sometimes considered one type of leadership training and development.

Recruiting typically refers to high-volume or contingency-based hiring, where firms submit candidates and are paid on placement. Executive search is a retained, consultative process for senior and critical roles — the firm is engaged exclusively, takes time to deeply understand the organization and role, conducts a thorough market assessment, and manages the full process from sourcing through offer. Executive search firms are partners in the process, not just a pipeline of resumes.

Integration coaching supports a newly placed leader during the critical first months in a role — the period when research shows the highest failure risk. It helps the incoming leader build relationships, understand the culture, and establish credibility quickly. Ticonderoga also offers integration coaching for the existing team, helping them adapt to new leadership and align around the transition. The placement is only successful if the leader actually sticks and succeeds — integration coaching is how you protect that investment.

A fractional CHRO is a senior HR leader who works with an organization part-time or on a retained basis — providing strategic people leadership without the cost of a full-time executive hire. It’s most common in smaller or scaling organizations that need senior HR capability but aren’t yet at the size or stage to justify a full-time Chief People Officer. A fractional CHRO can own people strategy, advise leadership, build out HR infrastructure, and manage critical talent decisions — stepping in at the level the organization actually needs.

Most executive coaching engagements run six to twelve months. Shorter engagements can address a specific challenge or transition; longer ones allow for deeper behavioral change and sustained development. At Ticonderoga, we structure engagements based on what the leader and organization actually need — not a fixed number of sessions. The cadence, duration, and focus are designed around the goals, not a standard package.

ROI from executive coaching is measured through a combination of behavioral change, business outcomes, and stakeholder feedback. Common indicators include 360-degree feedback comparing pre- and post-engagement perceptions, goal attainment on objectives set at the start of the engagement, retention of the leader, and downstream impact on team performance. Some organizations also track harder metrics — promotion rates, engagement scores, or specific business results tied to leadership decisions. The most important measure is whether the leader is more effective in the role than they were before. Firms and coaches will use various formulas in an attempt to financial quantify coaching impact and demonstrate ROI to clients; while many of these formulas are useful inputs, with rare exception, they all rely on various qualitative inputs and assumptions at some point in the numerical estimates.

If a program exists but isn’t producing behavior change, the answer is usually redesign — not replacement. Common signs: participants rate the content highly but nothing changes back on the job; facilitators have gone off-script because the material doesn’t land; the program was built for a different audience or a problem that has since evolved. Building from scratch makes sense when there’s no existing infrastructure worth preserving, or when the learning objective is genuinely new. Ticonderoga audits existing programs to make that call before recommending either path.

Look for a firm that takes the time to understand the organization — not just the job description. Key factors: a single point of contact who owns the process from start to finish; demonstrated experience in your industry or function; a rigorous assessment methodology beyond resume review; transparency in how they source and evaluate candidates; and a clear position on what happens after placement.

Most firms are financially incentivized to drop a decent candidate at your doorstep and hope it works out. Our integration-coaching approach is designed to ensure you get success out of the executive once they’re in-seat, not just have a successful recruiting process.

Psychometric assessment uses validated instruments to measure cognitive ability, personality, behavioral tendencies, leadership potential, and other capabilities. In executive search, it provides structured, objective data to complement interviews and performance assessments — helping organizations understand how a candidate is likely to lead, make decisions, manage conflict, and operate under pressure. At Ticonderoga, psychometric assessment is embedded in the search process as a standard tool, not an add-on. Results are used to inform candidate evaluation, guide structured interviews, and support onboarding and integration coaching once a leader is placed. We use only the most robust tools, such as the Hogan inventories, OPQ32r, Watson-Glaser II, and other valid and highly-reputable instruments.