ALISHA C. JOHNSON

I'm from the Bay -- Suisun, California to be specific.

My father is an Army veteran and retired engineer. My grandmother followed in her mother’s footsteps and ran a board and care home for forty years. I grew up understanding that structure and care are not opposites. The most disciplined person in the room can also be the one who makes it feel like home.

Somewhere in there, I became a diagnostician. I get into the messy middle of a business with my bare hands, find the truth of how it's put together, and help it grow. The industry is incidental. The perspective is the product.

But the work I love most is building something that doesn't exist yet. A new brand, a new category, a new answer to a question no one has thought to ask. The diagnostician finds what's broken or stuck. The other part of me wants to be in the room when the page is still blank.

Twenty years across Fortune 500 brands — Clorox, Ghirardelli, Jelly Belly — and growth-stage companies sharpened both instincts. Today I work as a fractional CMO for a small number of companies at a time. Family-built businesses, recently acquired ones, building close partnerships with the operators who own them.

HARVARD · WHARTON · TWO DECADES IN THE ROOM

THE WRITING

This is an online magazine about what I find worth thinking about: family, business, and legacy. Elder care is the current anchor and I come to it honestly, through multiple generations of people who built businesses around hospitality and care. But the thinking moves wherever the problem is interesting.

Field notes from real places. Analysis that earns its keep. The occasional observation that doesn't fit anywhere but is too good to lose.

TODAY

Primarily working in senior care with operators, growth-stage businesses, and the people who've acquired them.

The problem keeps moving. So do I.

Family. Business. Legacy.