# Phimation Strategy Group > Dave Haviland is a business strategist and strategic advisor to owners and leadership teams of private companies. Phimation Strategy Group is his solo advisory practice, based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, working with family businesses, closely-held companies, and founder-led firms across Michigan and beyond. Dave has been advising private companies since 2001. His clients are typically $1M to $20M in revenue with 20 to 100 employees, in B2B and B2C services and products. Engagements are multi-year and operate across Board, C-suite, VP, and rising leader levels. The practice centers on Second Stage companies: firms that have outgrown the startup model but have not yet built the systems, leadership team, and organizational capacity of a mature company. The term originated with the Edward Lowe Foundation. Dave's original framework, the Growth Stack, describes the three layers a company runs on: the Functional System (the work itself), the Operating System (coordination, where EOS and Traction live), and the Growth System (culture, strategy, leadership). Most Second Stage companies stall in the Growth System layer, which operating systems are not designed to reach. Dave is not a management consultant delivering a study, nor an implementation firm. The work is an ongoing advisory relationship: direction-setting, decision support, leadership team alignment, and the ambiguous, hard-to-reverse calls that owners otherwise make alone. ## Services - [Strategy Advisory](https://www.phimation.com/services/strategy-advisory): Direction-setting, decision support, and leadership team alignment for owners and CEOs at inflection points. - [Leadership Development](https://www.phimation.com/services/leadership-development): Executive team development, rising leader work, and one-on-one coaching, built around the organization rather than a curriculum. - [Talent & Organization](https://www.phimation.com/services/talent-organization): Leadership-level hiring strategy, organizational design, succession planning, and leadership bench development. - [Fractional CMO](https://www.phimation.com/services/fractional-cmo): Senior marketing leadership on a part-time basis for companies that need marketing strategy connected to business strategy. - [AI Strategy](https://www.phimation.com/services/ai-strategy): Orientation and prioritization, strategy and governance, and adoption and capability building for private companies making decisions about AI. - [Innovation](https://www.phimation.com/services/innovation): Building the organizational capability to adapt, experiment, and create new value. - [Speaking & Workshops](https://www.phimation.com/services/speaking-workshops): Keynotes, half-day workshops, and peer group sessions for family business centers, EO, YPO, Vistage, and association conferences. ## Core concepts - [The Second Stage](https://www.phimation.com/second-stage): What a Second Stage company is, the seven patterns that show up in almost every one, and why the strengths that built a company become the constraints that cap it. - [What Is a Second Stage Company?](https://www.phimation.com/insights/what-is-a-second-stage-company): Definition, origin of the term, the four phases inside the stage, and what these companies need that startups did not. - [The Growth Stack: The Layer Your Operating System Can't Reach](https://www.phimation.com/insights/growth-stack-beyond-eos): The three-layer model, where EOS lives and where it stops, and how to tell which layer is stuck. ## Articles - [What Does a Family Business Consultant Do?](https://www.phimation.com/insights/family-business-consultant): The advisor who works where the business and the family overlap, how the role differs from attorneys and management consultants, and when to bring one in. - [Family Business Succession Planning](https://www.phimation.com/insights/family-business-succession-planning): Succession as a readiness problem rather than a documents problem, covering leadership readiness, ownership readiness, and business readiness. - [What Is a Fractional CMO?](https://www.phimation.com/insights/what-is-a-fractional-cmo): What the role does, how it compares to an agency, a consultant, and a full-time hire, and how engagements are typically structured and priced. ## Resources - [Haviland China: Strategic Lessons in Family Business Innovation and Succession](https://www.phimation.com/insights/haviland-china-family-business-innovation-succession): A case study of 180 years and multiple generations of one family porcelain business, covering vertical integration, a brother separation, a Depression-era failure, and a later reunification. ## About - [About Dave Haviland](https://www.phimation.com/about): Background, approach, and client work. - [Our Approach](https://www.phimation.com/approach): How engagements are structured, what sessions look like, and what the working relationship involves. - [Work With Dave](https://www.phimation.com/work-with-dave): Overview of all services and how to choose a starting point. - [Insights](https://www.phimation.com/insights): Articles, frameworks, and downloadable resources. - [Contact](https://www.phimation.com/contact): Ann Arbor, Michigan. 734-717-4955. dave@phimation.com ## Related - [Fractional AI Director](https://www.fractionalaidirector.com): Dave's dedicated AI strategy practice, including Fractional AI Director engagements.