S Sanctuary Brands
TAKING SELECT ENGAGEMENTS · EST. 2018 · CHICAGO Two practices · One principal

Brand strategy
for organizations
that can’t afford
to be misunderstood.

Positioning, messaging, and brand leadership for companies where the story has to hold under scrutiny. Built from twenty years inside the room where those decisions get made.

The Brand Strategy practice → Or, the GTM Accelerator ↓
Practice 01 · Foundational Brand Strategy i.

Positioning platforms and messaging frameworks built to hold under scrutiny.

For organizations telling a new story, or finally telling the right version of an old one. Built to travel across every audience: investors, customers, talent, and the board. Senior-led, fixed scope, no handoff to junior staff.

  1. 01

    Brand strategy & positioning

    What you stand for, why it matters, and how to own it. Defined before you scale.

  2. 02

    Messaging frameworks, per audience

    Investors, customers, and partners each require different language. Frameworks that keep every version true to the same through-line.

  3. 03

    Rebrands, launches & creative oversight

    When the brand needs to move (identity, naming, launch), I run the work. Leadership stays focused on the business.

  4. 04

    Investor & board narrative

    One story your board trusts, your investors believe, and your team can repeat. Built for the rooms where it actually has to hold.

A separate sister practice
Post-close advisory · PE & VC-backed platforms Fixed scope · Fixed fee
Practice 02 · Productized

GTM Value Accelerator.

A commercial-alignment sprint for PE- & VC-backed leadership teams post-close, pre-scale, or mid-integration. The work lives on its own microsite.

30–45
Days to locked direction
~10h
Leadership time
Fixed
Flat project fee

Diagnose the misalignment, lock positioning, deliver a board-ready roadmap your team can execute the day they receive it. No retainer. Hard deadline. Done.

Visit gtm.sanctuarybrands.com → External microsite
Two practices, one principal
Colleen Cooney · Principal

Brand Strategy is the foundational practice. It’s the work below the surface that has to hold for years. The Accelerator is its productized companion: same conviction, compressed timeline, written for the post-close moment.

Most strategic failures aren’t strategy failures. They’re translation failures: a vision that’s clear at the top and murky everywhere else. Foundational brand strategy sets the story to travel over years. The Accelerator locks direction before the next 90 days cost you.

Selected Engagements

Four moments where the story had to hold, and the work had to travel.

01 PE-Backed · Professional Services

When a 600-location network runs on institutional strategy and local execution, without a bridge between them.

A national PE-backed home restoration franchise had strong marketing at the center and inconsistent results at the edges. Franchise owners lacked the tools to translate corporate programs into local revenue. Led a ground-up redesign of communications strategy, training infrastructure, and demand generation, including the network’s first mobile training app, built and deployed in seven weeks.

Results
—15% increase in sales conversions within the first four weeks of the pilot.
—48% average email open rate, three times the industry benchmark.
—$150K in new income potential unlocked at the franchise level.
02 Healthcare Services · National Launch

A $4M national campaign. Compressed timelines. Multiple agencies. Zero margin for compliance risk.

A global healthcare organization needed to execute a high-profile diagnostics initiative without introducing reputational or regulatory exposure. Served as senior communications lead and central coordination point, managing message alignment across brand, media, and regulatory teams simultaneously, and resolving compliance friction before it entered the approval cycle.

Results
—Nearly 3× media impressions year over year.
—Category-leading market share sustained against new competitive entry.
—Faster, lower-risk execution delivered across a regulated national launch.
03 MedTech · Brand Strategy

The highest-performing team in the building, and the company’s best-kept secret.

A commercial training team inside a global medtech company was consistently outperforming expectations and had nothing to show for it organizationally. Led full brand development through structured discovery, stakeholder alignment, visual identity, messaging framework, and a suite of internal collateral, built to travel across the enterprise and earn the visibility the work had already warranted.

Results
—Team repositioned from invisible to recognized driver of business performance.
—Buy-in for new initiatives and training programs accelerated.
—A scalable brand platform built for sustained organizational engagement and growth.
04 Consumer Goods · Channel Strategy

Managing a complex portfolio across a $350M+ category, with marketing, sales, and product that needed to move as one.

A leading household cleaning brand needed stronger channel strategies, tighter cross-functional coordination, and a more disciplined commercialization process for new products. Led annual channel marketing planning across the full portfolio, coordinated teams spanning marketing, sales, product, and research, and directed a new product line from category analysis through retail launch.

Results
—Trade dress overhaul and SKU rationalization delivered.
—Annual channel marketing plans aligned to portfolio growth goals.
—New product launched across full retail channel with category analysis, forecasting, and sales materials complete.
The principal

Twenty years.
Global brands.
One practitioner.

20yr
Practice
40+
Engagements
9
Sectors
5★
Catalant Advisor

Colleen Cooney built her career as a brand strategist inside some of the world’s most recognized companies: Abbott, Boston Scientific, Pfizer, Kraft. Not consulting from the outside, but in the room: accountable for what happened in market, present when the hard calls got made.

For the past fifteen years she has operated as an independent embedded partner, bringing that same standard to organizations that need senior brand and commercial leadership without the overhead of an agency or the generalism of a large consulting firm.

The GTM Value Accelerator is not a service she added to a menu. It’s a productized response to a pattern she watched compound repeatedly at the highest levels of PE-backed organizations after close. She built it because the problem is solvable, if you do it before execution starts.

Full bio & trajectory →
Direct line

Book a 15-minute intro call.

Two ways in. Book a quick intro call to talk through what you’re navigating, or send a short email and the principal will reply directly within two business days.

Book a 15-minute intro call → hello@sanctuarybrands.com LinkedIn ↗
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