About
Justin spent his career in the rooms where these decisions get made.
The insights
Human-centered, growth-driven.
WITH/IN was founded by Justin Tidmarsh, a leader who spent years inside Nike, Starbucks, Target, Chase, Best Buy and others. The thing he kept noticing was a specific disconnect: customer insight that struggled to become clear positioning, and positioning that was eroded when it reached the people, process, and technology meant to execute it.
Not a strategy problem. Not a talent problem. A system problem. A specific, solvable one.
Justin started WITH/IN because the gap between where a brand's Go-to-Market approach should be and where it is happens to be one of the most expensive, least-discussed problems in marketing and commercial leadership.
And because years of sitting inside those organizations gave him a particular way of seeing it that he couldn't find in the consulting market an operator + coaching lens we now bring to every engagement.
The path
Practitioner, not consultant.
Justin didn't come to this work as a consultant. He came to it as a practitioner; a leader who managed the teams, owned the accountability, and aligned the many stakeholders. The brands he worked with were places he showed up every day because he was passionate about the impact made for customers, shareholders, and teams.
That experience built something research alone can't replicate: an instinct for where growth is about to stall before it does. For the team conversation that sounds like alignment but isn't. For the customer insight that exists but isn't connected to the strategy. For the process that looks clean on a slide but breaks the moment it meets a real decision. It's the lens we bring to every engagement.
The model
Boutique, by design.
WITH/IN is a boutique, specialized practice led by Justin. Rather than carry a fixed roster of generalists, we assemble the right specialists for each engagement based on what the project actually needs.
That keeps us agile and nimble: senior expertise applied exactly where it matters, without the overhead of a large firm. It also keeps cost low for our clients, because you're paying for the specific capability the work demands and nothing you don't.
Why this work
Clarity, inspires growth.
We do this because the leaders we work with are some of the most capable people in their organizations, yet feel stretched thin in the ever-changing dynamics of the consumer landscape.
Once a Marketing or Commercial Leader can see exactly which stage is creating the friction, what was complex becomes specific. What was discouraging becomes workable. That clarity is what inspires us in every engagement.
The way we work
How we think.
Customer at the center
Every decision — from strategy to execution — is filtered through what actually serves the customer. Not the org chart, not the quarterly plan, not the easiest path. When the customer is the fixed point, the system aligns around the right priorities.
Growth stalls when the system isn't ready
We don't build solutions before we understand the system. Every engagement starts with listening to the data, the stakeholders, and the space between what the strategy says and what the organization actually does.
Consumer-backward not product-forward
Go-to-Market strategy starts with how customers make decisions not how the organization wants to sell. Those two things are almost never the same at the start of an engagement. Closing that gap is usually where the biggest growth opportunity lives.
Execution is the strategy
A plan that doesn't run isn't a strategy. It's a document. At a national retailer, rebuilding the marketing planning model to actually execute the strategy improved planning and stakeholder alignment, and sped time to market with fewer resources. We stay inside the work until the system moves.
Iteration beats perfection
The right operating rhythm with the right signals and the right feedback loops, compounds over time. That's the goal. Not a perfect launch. A system that keeps improving after we're gone. And we make sure the team is wired for sustained success.
Keep exploring
Next step
If something in here resonates, take the next step.
A 30-minute conversation. No pitch — just an honest look at where growth is stalling.