Board ADVISORY as a service
COMINGSOON
The Sounding BOARD
An advisory board is a strategy-level sounding board: ten senior decision-makers, convened by invitation, meeting across the year to pressure-test a brand's strategy, shape its product direction, and hold an ongoing conversation about where the market is going. Built for long-term engagement, it returns stronger relationships, better-informed strategy and new business, and its value compounds year on year.
A year at a GLANCE
For one year, the board convenes around the brand: counsel at the table, presence at its moments, their names beside the brand's. A room like this only forms around trust: convened from inside, it's a sales program; convened by a trusted name, it's an advisory board.
To enter a market with judgement.
To be met instead of chased.
To become the brand they mentioned.
To learn whether the product fits.
Months 1-2
DECIDING WHAT A WIN LOOKS LIKE
A full debrief with the brand, the plan configured around it, and then the rounds of invitations. Some names say yes in a week. Some need to clear it with their own board.
Months 2-10
THE BOARD AT WORK
It opens with an onboarding session in the room, the brand's real challenges on the table. Then every other month, three of the five in person with a dinner around them.
Months 10-12
THE YEAR, WRITTEN DOWN
The last month belongs to the record: the white paper, the film, and the case the brand can take anywhere.
Three levels of AMBITION
The board is the constant. Ambition is what changes: how much of the year is made public, how often the brand is seen beside these names, and how fast a market comes to know it.
A lean year is the sessions and the dinners. An ambitious one goes as far as the brand's imagination.
1. LEAN
For a brand that wants to see the
room work before building around it.
Hybrid board meetings across the twelve months, dinners around the sessions held in the room, and light content with social amplification. The table, well set, and the rest decided once the names are at it.
2. BASE
The board + engagement + amplification
The year made public. Portraits and event coverage done properly, press carrying from month one, roundtables, an event behind a brand announcement, and the case study the brand keeps.
THE BOARD
DINNERS
3. AMBITIOUS
When the goal is a market, not a meeting.
For a brand arriving with means and in a hurry. Every month carries something: video interviews, working lunches, demos, podcasts, workshops, pop-ups, high-level focus groups, white papers, presence at the brand's own events. The board is seen, heard and quoted all year, and the brand stops introducing itself.
THE BOARD
CONTENT
DINNERS
PUBLIC RELATIONS
BOARDS ARE SEATED TWICE A YEAR — FEBRUARY AND SEPTEMBER
•
BOARDS ARE SEATED TWICE A YEAR — FEBRUARY AND SEPTEMBER •
The INVESTMENT
STRATEGY
By Felino
Ideation, composition, the invitations, the agenda for every session, creative direction, and the story told afterwards.
The BOARD
Eight to ten members, compensation is set by seniority and tier of involvement.
The PRODUCTION
Rooms, content, press and travel, in the brand's own name.
Core TEAM
VALERIA DOMINGUEZ
Palo Alto, California
Founder & CEO, Felino
A growth consultancy building go-to-market strategy for brands in the US and Europe — with the eye of a fashion house.
Mechanical engineer, twenty years in digital business. Chief Digital Officer at Adolfo Dominguez through the transformation years, 20x growth across 27 countries, and on the board of the listed company since 2018. Harvard Business School. She has convened Iberia’s eCommerce leadership privately for six years, from Silicon Valley.
CONVENES FROM
eCommerce leadership · Consumer brands · Silicon Valley
MARISOL MENENDEZ
País Vasco, Spain
Founder & CEO, Bilakatu
An open innovation and ecosystem orchestration firm, helping organisations grow through collaboration.
Industrial engineer, IESE. Twenty-five years in open innovation. Former Global Head of Open Innovation at BBVA and Chief Open Innovation Officer at South Summit. Founder of Bilakatu and WITH. She brings the architecture and the ground in Europe.
CONVENES FROM
Corporate & institutional innovation · Banking & fintech · Women executives across 35 countries
VALERIA DOMINGUEZ Founder & CEO, Felino
Executive MBA/PLD, Harvard Business School
B.Sc in Mechanical Engineering
Multilingual in English, Spanish, French, and German
Member of the Board & Head of Digital Transformation Committee (2018–present) & Chief Digital Officer at Adolfo Dominguez (2011–2016) → led 20x sales growth & 27 country expansion
Vice President at the Corcoran Group, New York City (2004–2009)
Award-winning speaker at international eCommerce and Digital Strategy Conferences
MARISOL MENENDEZ Founder & CEO, Bilakatu
Industrial Engineer, Executive MBA, IESE
25+ years leading open innovation, ecosystem strategy, and strategic growth
Former Global Head of Open Innovation at BBVA → built the function and fintech ecosystem worldwide
Former Chief Open Innovation Officer at South Summit
Founder & CEO of Bilakatu and WITH, a network of 250+ female executives across 35 countries
Open innovation author and Co-Chair of the World Open Innovation Conference
Felino sits between Silicon Valley and Spain, with a deep working knowledge of the European continent. Bilakatu is rooted in Spain, with reach across Europe and into Latin America, where Marisol was born. Valeria and Marisol have worked alongside one another for fifteen years, and a seat offered by one is accepted on the word of the other.
An American company entering Europe usually opens in London and works outward. Spain is not reached that way. Relationships of this depth are not hired; they are the accumulation of a life spent in the work, the family and the community that compose a market. We offer ours, and the same in reverse for the Spanish or Latin American company making inroads in the United States.
The work itself is strategy: open innovation methodology, go-to-market counsel, and ties held across decades in commerce, fashion and the wider business community.
The methodology applies to any market. In Spain and the United States, the depth of our relationships is a competitive advantage, and we say so plainly.
Two markets, ONE PRACTICE
The United States, Spain, Europe
