Services

For leaders planning the next three years

Futures Strategy

You're about to invest in a product, feature, or new market. We'll get you the truth about what customers actually want.
Through interviews, journey maps, and live tests, you know what to build and what to skip.

A validated product or feature direction backed by real user evidence
- Workflows, storyboards, and interaction logic ready for high-fidelity design
- A recommendation memo that ties findings to your success metrics and KPIs
- Customer language and quotes your team can use in stakeholder presentations
- A clear path to the next bet: what to test, what to ship, what to retire
6–8 weeks. A validated decision at the end.
Custom multi-year programs available

For leaders launching something new

Customer Research & Validation

Your roadmap assumes the world stays the same. It won't. We'll show you which market shifts matter for your business, which ones are noise, and what to do about them before your competitors figure it out.
- Real market signals (not desk research) to ground your strategic planning in evidence
- Identification of the cultural, behavioral, and technological shifts most likely to reshape your category, and which ones to act on first
- Executive-ready white papers and scenario artifacts your team can use to align leadership and defend decisions to the board
- A clear point of view on which current tactics will age well, which are quietly losing ground, and which need to be retired
- A sized and sequenced opportunity map that your strategy team can translate into their planning process
6–10 weeks.
Custom multi-year engagements available

Clients say

As a client of Sarah during a consulting project with a global reach, I had the privilege to witness firsthand her expertise, dedication, and strategic mindset that were instrumental in ensuring the project's success. Her ability to collaborate with diverse teams across different regions was impressive and contributed to seamless project execution. I was particularly impressed with the high quality of their deliverables, which led to innovative solutions that drove positive outcomes.

Pharmaceutical Healthcare Executive, London
I met Futura Apex Advisory through SXSW Chief Programming Officer, Hugh Forrest, who recommended her to partner with me to produce the SXSW Hackathon. Futura Apex Advisory was a great match, having planned and produced several Hackathons, and we immediately spoke the same language. Her incredible planning and organizing skills, her great enthusiasm, and especially her keen eye for innovative ideas helped with moving the SXSW Hackathon in a new direction.”

Hackathon Executive, SXSW, Austin
Working with Sarah was an incredible experience. Her thoughtfulness and expertise led to a successful event with engaged participants. Beyond the event itself, Sarah made the planning process enjoyable. Her positive attitude and willingness to adapt as the requirements of the event evolved made a challenging timeline seem a little less difficult.

Program Director, Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health, Philadelphia

Case Studies

“Case Study 1

Validating what 24 parents actually want from baby food

Customer Research & Validation · Global CPG company · 6-week sprint

The bet: A Fortune 500 consumer goods company was considering new product directions in the baby food category. The team had hypotheses. What they didn't have was evidence from real parents and the investment ahead was significant.

What we learned: Parents weren't asking for a better product. They were asking for relief from the entire mental load of feeding a child. One core insight reframed the opportunity: "I want to develop healthy habits for my child without wasting effort."

What we built: A 6-week validation sprint: 24 direct consumer interviews, 3 rounds of digital ad experiments reaching 241K people, 3 evidence-backed personas, and a full consumer journey map across seven stages.

What changed: Three opportunity areas, ranked by evidence. The highest-performing concept tested at 2.95% click-through, well above the 1.20% category benchmark. The client walked away with a clear answer on where to invest next.

Case Study 2

Three cultural shifts reshaping how patients experience pharma

Futures Strategy · Top-10 global pharmaceutical company · Multi-paper research program

The bet: A leading pharma company's patient services team needed to understand how patient behavior, trust, and engagement were shifting, not in 2040, but right now. The patient of 2026 is already different from the patient of 2020, and outreach strategies built on old assumptions were quietly losing ground.

What we learned: Three cultural shifts redefining the patient experience: the death of a single source of truth, the rise of digital diasporas, and the erosion of trust in traditional healthcare authority. Patients now trust strangers in online communities more than healthcare professionals.

What we built: A series of futures research reports translating signals, trends, and shifts into specific implications for patient engagement, trust-building, and outreach. Each report ended with concrete recommendations, not abstractions.

What changed: The team gained a shared language for the forces reshaping their work, and a roadmap for adapting outreach, verification, and trust-building strategies to the patient of today, not the patient of five years ago.