ABOUT
I’m interested in what businesses miss when they get too close to their own business.
Companies tend to see the world through the categories they operate in, the products they make and the language they use internally.
People rarely do.
That gap is where I spend most of my time.
I’m Danny Poulin, a strategist and business leader who has spent the last 20 years helping companies understand what people are really buying, where growth might come from and what has to become true for someone to make a different decision.
My work has taken me across pharmaceuticals, healthcare, consumer products, technology, financial services and culture. I’ve helped launch products and businesses, reposition brands, build growth strategies, win new business and advise leadership teams navigating consequential commercial decisions.
Today, I lead strategy across a large portfolio of healthcare businesses. Before that, I worked with companies and brands including Bacardi, Bayer, Pfizer, PayPal, Sperry, K&N, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Sweet Baby Ray’s and others.
Earlier in my career, I helped build a media and entertainment business that put me on the road with artists including Kendrick Lamar, Chance the Rapper and Logic.
It sounds like a strange collection of experiences.
I think that’s the point.
Different industries develop different assumptions about how businesses grow. Healthcare thinks differently from consumer goods. Technology thinks differently from advertising. Founders see problems differently from large organizations.
Moving between those worlds has made me suspicious of answers that only make sense inside one of them.
The questions I keep coming back to are pretty simple.
What business are we really in?
What are people actually buying?
What are they really choosing between?
Where could the next chapter of growth come from?
What should only we mean?
What must become true for the strategy to work?
This site is where I think through those questions and others like them.
Not because I have all the answers.
Because businesses get more interesting when you stop taking the problem at face value.
Danny Poulin
Boston, Massachusetts