Stephanie Gillespie Schrock, a brand strategist, transforms marketing from a series of isolated campaigns into a strategic force that shapes entire businesses. At SKGS Consulting Group, client engagements begin with a methodological dive into how a company operates and connects with its audience. In that process, Schrock transforms her insight into an actionable strategy to influence the brand’s long-term growth.
That orientation stems from Schrock’s career spent on both sides of organizations, inside teams managing constrained budgets and outside advising leadership on growth. Exposure to how decisions ripple through operations and customer experience shaped a consulting philosophy rooted in human-centered design, which she applies beyond product development into marketing and business strategy.
Schrock says, “People come to me with a marketing problem, and it turns into a lengthy discussion on price strategies, operational experience expectations, and a deeper exploration of customer experience with the brand.”
Human-centered design, in her framework, asks leaders to walk through what their audience is thinking, saying, doing, and feeling at every touchpoint. That exercise is designed to reframe how a company communicates its value. In doing so, Schrock believes that brands can learn to articulate the problem they solve from a place of empathy. “Story branding, user experience thinking, and operational alignment all converge into a single strategic discipline, and that becomes imperative for creating a cohesive customer experience.”
Schrock’s firm, SKGS Consulting Group’s evolution, reflects how she has adapted this discipline to meet businesses where they are. While the marketing firm continues to offer end-to-end advisory services, it now operates through three distinct service structures, designed to address varying levels of resource management.
The first is a subscription-based execution model built for organizations and creative partners who need consistent tactical output without extensive consultation. Designers, content creators, and founders who already understand their direction can submit work requests and receive ongoing deliverables. That model, she highlights, emerged from observing long-standing collaborators who excel at execution yet struggle to articulate strategic value to their clients.
Her response is to lower the barriers to entry and allow so businesses wary of formal strategy engagements can begin with tangible work while still benefiting from thoughtful oversight.
Furthermore, the second structure preserves the white-glove advisory experience where accountability is embedded within the firm’s comprehensive plans, guiding implementation and delivering measurable outcomes. This, Schrock highlights, remains the core environment where her approach unfolds fully, integrating brand, operations, and customer experience into a unified plan.
Lastly, the third model introduces fractional advisory across business functions, extending beyond marketing into operations, finance, sales, and leadership mentorship. Schrock has curated a network of seasoned executives, former CMOs, CEOs, and specialists, who contribute their time as fractional coaches for growing companies.
“You’re getting knowledge faster than you would get anywhere else,” she says. “The accountability shifts to the company to execute, while they’re guided by people who have lived it.” This structure is also aimed at creating a pathway for experienced leaders exploring consulting for the first time through mentorship-style engagements.
Flexibility across these models reflects a deeper sensitivity to how businesses perceive strategy. Schrock recognizes that many leaders view it as unnecessarily expensive. Having worked inside organizations where every dollar demanded justification, she approaches engagements with fiscal awareness. “I’m hyper-conscious of your dollars,” she says. “Strategy shouldn’t feel like you’re burning through money without understanding what you’re getting. Most of what we’re doing is preventing the rework that happens later.” To reduce hesitation further, she now offers focused 60-minute strategy sessions designed to bring clarity to immediate priorities.
Schrock’s thinking increasingly turns toward community application. Based in Kalamazoo, she is developing a nonprofit initiative aimed at high school students to workshop business and community project ideas over a six-week program. Participants, she notes, will collaborate with local experts while applying the same human-centered frameworks used in corporate strategy.
Ultimately, across subscription execution, white-glove advisory, and fractional mentorship, Stephanie Gillespie Schrock’s work consistently returns to the same principle: how a business looks, speaks, and feels to the people it serves.
