Jonas Schneider · Advisory practice for mission-driven organisations

Organisations are usually sitting on more than they are currently using.

Eight situations I've been called into again and again. Any of them sound familiar?

Great people, a strong product, a clear mission, and still the output doesn't match what the organisation should be capable of. It's rarely a lack of capability. Something is quietly getting in the way, and it's rarely the thing people name first.

New leadership, a new phase of growth, a restructuring, a mission reset. The structure and the habits that got the organisation here were right for that chapter but haven't caught up with the next one. The window to get ahead of it is usually shorter than it looks.

The board expects results. The team expects direction. And when the calls get difficult, there are surprisingly few people you can think them through with. Sometimes you don't need another opinion. You need someone to challenge or fully back the one you already have.

There are more opportunities worth pursuing than there are people and hours to pursue them. The priorities are rarely the hard part. The work is dropping the rest, because everything on the list has someone behind it. Often several.

What worked for years, sometimes decades, has lost its grip. Regulation has hardened what can be said, audiences are more sceptical, and boards and funders are asking for measurable results rather than intent. The organisation doesn't want to go quiet, it just doesn't yet know how to speak and act with force in this new environment. Inside, some of that reads as a betrayal of what it was founded to be.

The supply chain is cleaner, the reporting is honest, the internal work is genuinely good. And set against the scale of the problem, it barely registers. That is not a failure of effort. It is the boundary of what any organisation can change inside its own walls. The next lever is outside them, in the rules themselves, and in what becomes possible when organisations stop working alone. Almost nobody solves problems this size by themselves, and most are far more capable of it than they believe.

The ambition is real and the potential is there. What's missing is the next step. When every direction is open and none is obviously wrong, choosing gets harder rather than easier, and the cost of the wrong next move is higher than it looks.

Strong conviction, limited runway. Every hire, every market choice, every decision about raising or spending money costs time the founders don't have. What's needed here isn't a framework, it's someone who has actually built lean before.

Different situations. Usually the same thing underneath.

Priorities multiply. Old structures outlive their purpose. Decisions slow down. People read the strategy differently.

And when the problem feels urgent enough, the instinct is to do everything at once. That is usually what dilutes the work. Organisations working on problems bigger than they are carry an extra weight too: the feeling that nothing they do is ever enough, which is more paralysing than motivating.

None of it is anyone's fault, and all of it is hard to see from inside. Finding it is usually the first job.

If you recognise any of this, let's talk.

You don't need another strategy deck.

Here is how I work.

I build the direction with you.A co-created strategy is a strategy everyone acts on. It also tends to be a better strategy, because the people doing the work know which parts will hold in practice and which ones only work on paper.
I work at every level.The CEO in the morning, the people closest to execution in the afternoon. I usually learn as much from the second conversation as from the first, and I test every direction against both.
I'm a critical optimist.Not optimism that ignores reality, not criticism that makes progress feel impossible. Organisations move when the people inside truly believe it's possible, and my job is to build that belief out of what is actually there. It holds better if it's built together.
I've spent twenty years at the intersection of worlds that don't normally talk to each other.Creative and commercial. Advocacy and business. Policy and operations. I never was a designer, a lawyer, a policy specialist or an engineer, but I have worked closely with all of them over many years and I've learned to speak all of their languages.

I'm a builder who can think strategically and a strategist who can build.

What's different afterwards

The direction is clear enough that people act on it without checking, and everyone can explain it in their own words. People know what the organisation is doing and why. They also know what it has decided not to do.

This means doing fewer things, better. Decisions that used to stall get made. And what was already there starts to compound.

There is usually some pride in it too, because the people who made it happen know it was theirs. And it runs without me, which is the point.

Twenty years of doing it, not just advising on it.

Different industries, the same pattern: something with real potential, turned into something that works.

Protect Our Winters Europe

Executive Director, three and a half years

Inherited ten national chapters with little shared direction and left a coordinated European movement with a permanent presence in Brussels, unified governance and a common strategic framework. Built with world-class athletes, climate scientists and major outdoor brands.

ANONYME designers

Founder and CEO, almost ten years

A beautiful collection, with no route to market. Turned it into a brand and built the company around it: a profitable multinational with offices in Barcelona, Rome, Hong Kong and Guangzhou, and distribution across Europe, Japan and North America. Alongside running the company, I founded and ran both the Hong Kong and China operations and co-directed the Italian branch. Bootstrapped, profitable from day one, no external funding. Sold my stake, and stayed long enough to see the handover through.

Lavand

Consultant, four years embedded

A small Madrid company in crisis: strong products, the wrong business model. Created two new brands for it and led their international expansion across three continents. 55 showrooms, 3,500+ points of sale. Revenue and profit both grew more than tenfold, reaching several million euros a year in operating profit.

Chilliwep S.L.

The practice I have kept coming back to since 2006

It started with fashion companies expanding beyond their home market, and widened quickly into strategy, growth, and building the teams and structures to sustain it. Clients have ranged from start-ups to stock-listed companies, among them Nina Ricci, Christian Lacroix, SKFK and Lenzing AG, and most recently the founder of Barcelona Digital Nomads.

“Jonas is not only an extraordinary force of energy and enthusiasm, he also brings the organization, tools, and drive to enable really remarkable successes. I was Vice President of the Board of POW Europe, responsible for oversight of the executive director. He developed opportunities with a diverse array of allies, from our industry partners to Members of European Parliament. In the years Jonas has been with POW Europe, he has moved the organization forward to become a stable, steady and impactful organization with a strong backing.”
Megan AndersonVice President of the Board, Protect Our Winters Europe

“He's smart and creative, and sensitive when it's time to navigate internal politics. His competence has allowed our org to grow; he's exponentially increased cohesion within our regional chapters and increased focus. I'd work with him again in a heartbeat.”
Tom Wilson-NorthBoard member, Protect Our Winters Europe · European Marketing Manager, Nidecker Snowboards

“I was in the middle of unwinding a business partnership that had gone wrong, with money tied up and a community watching. Jonas helped me think clearly when I couldn't. He was honest with me about what was realistic, stayed with it over months rather than just handing me advice, and I came out of it without damage to the community I'd spent years building.”
Viktor VincejFounder, Barcelona Digital Nomads

“I experienced Jonas Schneider in our business collaboration as a respectful, empathetic and authentic team leader. He is a forward-thinking, well-grounded economist whose expertise also shows in his thinking as a sustainability-minded fashion analyst.”
Susanne CarlsEuropean Application & Business Development Manager, Lenzing Group

“I worked with Jonas for two years on the creation of a new brand. He is a proactive and business-focused person; he knows how to listen to the customer and identify their needs. He also has great organizational and team management skills.”
Vladimiro CipollaLavand and ANONYME designers

It starts with a conversation, and it lasts as long as it is useful.

Three steps, and one thing I am not.

A conversation first.It costs nothing and it's the only way to know whether there's a fit.
Then usually a focused piece of work.A few hours or days spent understanding the situation properly, ending with a clear view of what to do and the energy to start.
Then we build the way forward together.An embedded engagement that runs for a while. A retainer with one leader through a critical period. Or a single focused piece of work, which is often how the longer relationships begin. It lasts only as long as it is useful.

What I'm not

A one-off workshop facilitator, a project manager, someone who arrives with a method looking for a problem, or a coach in the formal sense. If a workshop is the right way to start, it becomes the beginning of the work, not the whole of it.

Jonas

I'm Swiss, based in Barcelona, and I've spent twenty years moving between consulting, entrepreneurship and leadership.

Built my own fashion brand and built brands for others. Closed one of my own after four years, later than I should have. Set up supply chains across Europe and Asia. Launched into markets from Japan to North America. Founded and ran operations in Hong Kong and China. Co-directed an Italian branch. Mentored young designers at a Barcelona incubator. Took my first consulting mandate twenty years ago and have come back to the work between every chapter since. Moved into the NGO world and brought ten national organisations together around one mission, one strategy and a shared sense of what was possible.

Most of that was building companies. The last chapter was different: an organisation whose whole purpose was to change something bigger than itself. What I know now sits in the overlap, and that is what this practice is for.

Jonas Schneider on a panel at the European Parliament — European Parliament, Brussels

Many advisors help you think. I think with you, and I help make it happen.