Black and White Headhshot of Nancy Martira, a middle-aged white woman with lines around her eyes and nose. There are blurred lights in the background and the photo has a scratched effect to give it a vintage texture.

This is a Gold Rush.

I sell shovels.

Hi, I'm Nancy Martira. I help leaders and teams communicate with authority and authenticity instead of chasing quick fixes in a panic-driven market.

The market for knowledge-based businesses is a classic Gold Rush.

The Problem

Mid-career professionals leaving corporate roles to build consulting practices.

Growing businesses trying to scale their expertise beyond their founding team.

They're looking for guidance in a rapidly changing landscape‌ — ‌and there's no shortage of advice available.

The challenge? Much of what's available focuses on immediate, tactical solutions.

Quick wins. Fast results. Courses and frameworks designed to solve this month's problem.

And while tactical advice has its place, it becomes obsolete as quickly as last year's Instagram algorithm.

But Here’s What I Believe:

Real competitive advantage doesn't come from learning the latest trend or mastering this quarter's algorithm. It comes from developing deeper capabilities that let you adapt to whatever comes next.

The pressure to generate fast results pushes people toward tactical solutions when what they actually need is a strategic foundation.

Mud-caked shovel standing upright in overgrown grass, with a worn wooden handle and hints of autumn foliage surrounding a subtle dirt path

The Shovel Standard

When the boom inevitably busts, the road out of Gold Country will be littered with useless prospecting pans. But no one tosses aside their shovel.

A shovel has lots of other uses. When that reversal of fortunes comes, you can use your shovel to dig an irrigation ditch. Or a grave. With a good shovel, you can call yourself a landscaper or a gardener. Dig a hole to plant seeds. Show up at any construction site or scene of a natural disaster with your shovel, and watch how quickly you'll be put to work.

When I bring products and services to market, I always want to be selling the shovel, not the prospecting pan.

This is the Shovel Standard.

Ready to Build Real Resilience?

See the Shovel Standard in action with professional services including brand strategy, content development, and internal communications.

Let's Work Together.
Let's Work Together.

Why This Matters Now

As of August 2025, 806,000 people had been laid off from their jobs—the largest total since the global pandemic in 2020. Unlike 2020, generative AI and increased automation have fundamentally shifted the job market. People who have historically relied on their education, resume, and expertise are reassessing their career paths.

The natural response? Look for the fastest path forward. Get certified in something new. Learn the latest tool. Master the newest platform.

But here's the uncomfortable truth: If you get skilled and certified in something like AIO (artificial intelligence optimization for search engines), that might help you find a position next month, but it won't keep you employed next year. The technology and innovation cycle moves too quickly. What serves the algorithm today becomes obsolete in six months.


This is why I focus on building capabilities that compound over time rather than skills that depreciate.

A classical white marble statue of a woman with wavy hair, wearing a draped gown with a decorative belt and necklace, posed against a solid purple background.

My approach looks like using AI-enabled tools the way I use a good dictionary — to sharpen, not to outsource — because your voice is the last thing you should hand over to a machine.

SERVICES

Brand & Executive Positioning

Helps leaders and expert-led firms articulate their unique value in ways that reach beyond their existing networks. The shovel that helps you dig the foundation for sustainable growth.

Internal & Leadership Communications Systems

Creates operational clarity for growing firms and the executive teams inside them. Clear handbooks, role architecture, and leadership message systems — the shovels that let you scale without chaos.

Executive Thought Leadership & Content Strategy

Builds authority with audiences who don't know you yet. SEO-informed thought leadership and LinkedIn executive presence — the shovel that helps you cultivate new ground rather than mining out your existing network.

  • The clients who resonate most with this approach are survivors. Their careers have been built on capitalizing on opportunity when it peeks around the corner, leaping to the next branch, taking big swings, knowing when to fold and when to go all in. They kill their darlings. They've had dawning realizations that something isn't working and had to go back to the drawing board, even when it was painful.

    Nancy Martira, Clew

  • We don't glorify hustle culture here. I believe in balance and working intuitively: knowing when to rest and when to push and when to stand upside down and try something completely different.

My Background

Raw gold nuggets scattered across deep blue wooden planks, their metallic luster creating striking contrast against the textured surface

I started my career at Ketchum, so I know Agency World: the client expectations, the old chestnuts, and the red flags. Then Deloitte Digital, where I put in my time in the big consulting firm wringer — counseling Fortune 500 leaders through transformations, rebrands, and the occasional crisis. 

Trust me, my skills are up to snuff.

Twelve-plus years of writing for executives and building narratives around strategy, transformation, performance, and change taught me something crucial: the depth of strategic thinking typically reserved for large corporations should be accessible to knowledge-based entrepreneurs and growing businesses. The folks building the most interesting, impactful businesses often don't have access to real strategy, just the opportunitists selling prospecting pans.

That sucks.

A snapshot of the work: Clients counseled: Fortune 500 executives, CHROs, CFOs, and CTOs; founders and independent experts. Work shipped: Executive speeches and keynotes · strategy and transformation narratives · leadership town halls · LinkedIn thought leadership · brand and positioning frameworks. Reach: 14 U.S. states + Canada. Practicing since 2008.


An Invitation.

I want people to feel a sense of pride in their own knowledge, skills, and resilience after working with me. You should feel confident that you already have everything you need and you don't need to participate in panic-driven consumption.

If you believe that real competitive advantage comes from developing human capabilities rather than chasing the latest trend, we should talk. If you're ready to build a strategic foundation instead of collecting more quick fixes, let's explore how we can work together.

In a Gold Rush, most people are selling prospecting pans. Come get your shovel.

Book a Discovery Call
Book a Discovery Call
Explore My Services
Explore My Services
Poster hangs on a bare white wall. The poster shows a concrete labyrinth. There is a bright aqua colored arrow and some text with the words that say "You are here."

More About Me

A woman with short, curly auburn hair and fair skin, smiling and wearing a dark turtleneck sweater, against a plain light grey background.

I’m a New England Girl living in the High Desert of New Mexico. I miss the ocean terribly, and spend a lot of time in my bathtub.

“Clew” gets its name from the story of Ariadne, but the name delights me on many levels. In college, I learned how to knit and I took a class on the history of the Mystery Novel. I’ve been surrounded by armchair detectives and balls of yarn ever since.

There's a lot of stuff in my brain‌ — ‌books and podcasts to recommend; esoteric topics to explore; contemporary changemakers and personal heroes I admire; a deep bench of creative professionals and wise friends; new  thinking models to try. I love to talk about all of it.

The inside of my brain looks a little like this …

  • Grainy, historical black and white photo of the author Agatha Christie. Photo was taken in 1946 when the author was 56 years old. Photo Credit Getty Images

  • A granny squares crochet project in process. On a blocking board, finished squares are pinned to their full size. In the foreground, some completed squares have been joined together into pannels for a blanket.

  • Hand holding a book titled "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" in a bookstore with blurred bookshelves in the background.

  • Dog lying on a sofa with a plush toy, looking at the camera in a cozy indoor setting.

  • Close-up of a textured white fabric with a raised geometric pattern of interconnected diamond shapes formed by knotted and looped thread.

  • Four Nancy Drew mystery books stacked on a wooden surface, with titles visible including "The Secret of the Old Clock," "The Hidden Staircase," and "The Bungalow Mystery."

  • Red orange worsted weight yarn is stretched out on an umbrella swift ready to be wound into baslls. On the table there is a large bowl with more skeins.

  • Circular woven art piece made of colored yarns in shades of blue, gray, black, white, and green.