About · Mike Wittenstein

I’m Mike Wittenstein, a strategy advisor to founders, owners and CEOs.

Thirty years beside them, at companies with $20 million to $2 billion in annual revenue. $3.2 billion in documented client value; Storyminers since 2002. I’ve helped leaders see their business differently, then made the new view real enough to act on. Hands-on in every session.

Atlanta based. Working globally, in English and Portuguese. Spanish is conversational; Russian is rusty.

How I see

I watch the people before I read the plan.

Most strategy problems dress up as market or operations problems. Underneath, they’re people problems: good ideas failing because nobody walked in each other’s shoes, decisions steered by biases the people making them can’t see. So I watch people. How they see themselves. What they say when the meeting relaxes. How their answers arrive, not just what they say.

The plan tells you what a company intends. The people tell you what’s going to happen.

Two problems walk in most often. A leadership team that nods in the meeting and pulls in different directions afterward, because each person believes something different about the company’s purpose. A year of AI projects that brought speed and data, but no clarity and no advantage. Both come from the same source: nobody has seen the future state of the business clearly enough to make it easy to work toward. That is where the fix starts.

I learned to look at it this way early. I was an exchange student three times, twice in Brazil, once in the former USSR, and I learned Portuguese and Russian, and something bigger: people are people, regardless of their governments and the organizations they serve. See people how they see themselves, spend the time, and they’ll show you what’s really going on. That’s why the work still centers on people, and on their doing well.

And the name? A story, as I use the word, is a working model of your future: clear enough to step into, solid enough to test before anything gets built. Finding it is the mining.

The rest of this page is what that has looked like in practice, how I work now, and what to expect when we work together.

The record

Thirty years. $3.2 billion in documented client value.

The road ran through IBM, where I started and ran its first global practice for designing how customers experience a company, and then Storyminers: $3.2 billion in documented client value (revenue growth, permanent savings, and costs avoided — never a sale price) Source ↗, across hospitality, retail, distribution, technology, healthcare, manufacturing, and professional services. Much of it is work nobody had done before: a company’s first move into a new market, a first product of its kind. Much of it is the ordinary hard thing: getting a leadership team to pull in the same direction.

Five of them, told the same way, so you can find the one like yours.

Alternative Apparel: a T-shirt maker that found its real customer, with sales up 50%.

The problem. The founder-led company wanted to grow wholesale and retail at once and believed its customer was the buyer with the purchase order.

What we did. In working sessions we found the real customer was the person who wears the shirt. Nothing about the shirts changed; the company around them did.

What changed. Sales rose 50% after implementation.

Source ↗

LeasePlan: 6,500 people, one leadership team pulling apart, one framework adopted in 27 countries within 18 months.

The problem. The Dutch vehicle-leasing company ran more than 1.3 million vehicles in over 30 countries. Its director of customer experience had a clear charter to build one way of designing and managing the customer’s experience that every country could adopt, and no clout to make it happen. Department by department, operations, finance, credit, maintenance, sales, each head wanted to run and optimize the business from their own seat.

What we did. Instead of arguing over what each department wanted, we looked at how each of those wants would show up in front of a customer, and how the customer would see it and feel about it. The framework was built from their own requirements: a business that is easier to run, more profitable, and that customers stay with.

What changed. It was adopted in 27 countries within 18 months. The lesson holds everywhere: everyone can get more of what they want, because good design was never about winning.

Source ↗

Collins Project Management: a family firm that could not say its own value; six months later, the second-largest job in its history.

The problem. The construction project-management firm could not get clients to see what a firm like theirs would add.

What we did. We pulled the first meetings up from the to-do list and made them the offer: a project team charter with goals, anti-goals (what everyone agrees not to do), and how everyone would communicate. Because it was built on each client’s own culture, the client’s whole organization ran better, not just the project. The leadership team learned to talk about that value without losing the humility they had earned over decades: they asked the questions that let prospects find the value themselves.

What changed. Everybody on the same page, less risk, projects finishing sooner. Within six months the repositioning won the second-largest engagement in the firm’s history.

“We’ve been struggling with this for five years. You got it in one hour.”— Joe Collins, President, Collins Project Management

“Mike’s assistance and strategic insights were invaluable! He assisted us in developing our company’s ‘Reason For Being’ (which turned out to be so much more than a purpose or mission statement). Our RFB led to improved company clarity, focus, and resulted in tremendous growth.

Additionally, Mike helped us develop (and name) our unique service offering entitled ‘SamePage’. This methodology helped us better align design and construction teams for real, effective teamwork. His guidance through the development of SamePage has contributed to successful outcomes for hundreds of major facilities improvement projects.”— Marcus Vess, Principal at Collins Project Management during the work; now Senior Vice President, IMPACT

Source ↗

Vanta: an English school that bet on buildings when everyone went online; the first two centers opened on schedule and on budget.

The problem. Vanta teaches working professionals and students English for real-world use, and while most schools were moving online it went the other way: city centers where students come to practice, work on projects, and learn from each other. In 2012 it had a leadership team of about six and six weeks to get the first centers right.

What we did. We designed how a prospect becomes a student, from the first message to the layout of the rooms to the tool that customizes a brochure to each student’s interests.

What changed. The first two centers opened, in England and Mexico, on schedule and on budget, and the design was then repeated city by city.

Source ↗

UnitedPeoples: an idea too big for a stranger to see whole; ninety seconds of story, then nearly a thousand members in thirty-five countries.

The problem. Bob Westrope has spent ten years on one idea: the world is not short of good people, only of a way for good people to act together at scale. His network, Leaders Expedition, now UnitedPeoples, a Dutch public-benefit foundation, rests on it. The idea is large enough to matter and, for the same reason, too large for a stranger to see whole.

What we did. In 2019 Mike mined what Bob had promised his members, sorted those promises into a frame a newcomer could follow, and wrote ninety seconds of script for his 2019 membership campaign. In 2025 came a plan for a short film set in 2035, a first draft of requirements for UnitedPeoples’ AI guide, and one piece of advice on Bob’s funding presentation: add the context, don’t cut it.

What changed. By 2020 Leaders Expedition had nearly a thousand members in thirty-five countries, recruited with no product, no funding and no track record.

“Mike takes complex concepts and reduces them to an ease of understanding that makes them all the more powerful and seductive. That’s what Mike did for us with no more than 90 seconds of script that we used in a number of media formats to relaunch our important initiative.”— Bob Westrope, founder, UnitedPeoples, recorded May 2020

Source ↗

Recent work: ShineWell Health in 2025, four AI startups, a board seat, and AI-governance planning for a national board directors’ association. ShineWell Health, the healthcare-support company, is on the Client Stories page. Between Covid and then, I ran an active consulting and speaking practice while every client’s business model and priorities were reset, and I used the years after it to rebuild how Storyminers runs: the methods updated with AI and for it, the operations modernized, and the work narrowed to the kind I want to do with the people I want to do it with.

How I work now

No staff, no juniors. I do the work myself, with AI and proven specialists when the job needs them.

No junior associates learning on your dime. When the work needs a specialist (a sketch artist, say, or someone who builds AI tools), I bring in a proven one, and you’ll know who they are, because I say who did what.

AI decides nothing here. It does the reading and the typing so the room can spend its time on the thinking. It runs through everything: research before we meet, transcription while we talk, and follow-up work on your questions between meetings. Client material is used only inside your engagement, never to train AI models. And anything you’d rather keep off the record stays off it: say the word and the recording stops. Here is exactly where AI is used.

Three ways to work with me: the Leadership Alignment Workshop, for a leadership team that has to agree on what business it is in; Strategic Advisory, a standing partner for the decisions that are hard to walk back; and Coaching, one-on-one, for a leader growing into a bigger job. I also speak, and I serve as an independent director.

What to expect

Warm, fast, and you’ll hear it straight.

Sessions run warm and fast. You’ll do more than watch: plans get said out loud, tried on, improved on the spot. I’m not your project manager. Your own people run the project, and I roll up my sleeves beside them.

And pushback comes standard. It cost me jobs before I started Storyminers; here it is part of the job. If you want someone who will agree with you, that’s not me. I’ll say when I see it differently, and I’ll say it early.

Before you book time with a stranger, you’ll want to know whether you can trust me. That’s your call to make, not mine. So here’s the evidence this site offers: six client stories, told in full, next to the clients’ own words. An Approach page that says what a first engagement covers and what it doesn’t. Every number traced to a source. When a client’s story can’t be told, I say so instead of hinting. If that’s enough, pick a time below. If not, the stories are one click away.

The credentials

The credentials, briefly.

Certified in Private Company Governance by the Private Directors Association (2026). MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Management. Earlier, I earned three designations: Certified Speaking Professional, Certified Management Consultant, and Certified Customer Experience Professional, where I was about the 65th the Customer Experience Professionals Association minted. I have let all three lapse and moved on to learning from new places; what I learned earning them stayed. Source ↗

Off the clock: woodworking, which lets me think with my hands, and hiking. And travel. Seeing new people, eating new foods, seeing new things, and having new experiences fuels me. When the situation presents itself, it’s nice to marry a hike, a festival, or even a cultural walking tour with a work assignment.

And a thank-you. I work without a staff, but not alone. The designers, photographers, and collaborators who have shaped Storyminers over the years are named below.

The full credits

Worked with: Alan Bergstrom, Amanda Setilli, Barbara Deskey, Bob Westrope, Bryan Beard, Cathy Gucker, Christopher Penn, Chuck Reaves, Cindy Brown (photos), Clarke Bishop, Daniel Wise, Darcy Bevelacqua, Dave Rifkin, David Ing, Dez Thornton, Emeka Rajis, Emmanuel Umoh (in memoriam), Green Media Works (photos), Greg Rutledge, Hannah Wittenstein, Isaac Wittenstein, Jackie Goldstein, Jakrey Myers, Jason Bernstein, Jon Ferrara, Jørn Nielsen, Julia Michaels, Karina Piva, Kathryn Smith, Keith Finger, Kelly Berdine, Lois Wittenstein, Lori Erlich, Lou Carbone, Marcela Killin, Marcia Piacentino, Maria Moraes Robinson, Marilena Amorim Ferreira Piva, Mark Cohen, Mark Michelson, Michael Bowers, Mikah Calingo, Mike Werner, Milt Thomas, Pedro Fernan, Rahul Singla, Ray Killebrew, Renee Himel, Saurel Quettan, Simon Robinson, Stefan Osthaus, Stephan Haeckel (in memoriam), Tami Puckett, Thom Milkovic, Tyrae S. Campbell, Valeria Farre (in memoriam), Vuthinann (Dan) Hay, Waya Seaparke (in memoriam).

Influenced by, through their work: Peter Block, Peter Drucker (in memoriam), Bill Gates, Silke Bucker.

The field guide

Every company runs on a picture of what business it’s in. That picture is the frame, and it quietly decides which moves look possible. Change the Frame is my short field guide to the first move I make with every client: change the frame, and people align.

It’s free and complete on its own, useful even if we never meet.

Also in Português

Download Change the Frame, the Storyminers field guide, no email needed

To protect your information, we’ll send you a confirmation email before the link. It protects your inbox and our reputation. Nothing else follows unless you ask.

The next step

Book a free hour with Mike — no pitch.

A working conversation about the future you’re trying to create — and what’s keeping it from moving. Around here it’s called a Chemistry Check: a fit test that runs in both directions.

No prep. No deck. No pitch.

Pick a time with Mike

Just want to talk? Email mike@storyminers.com or call or text +1 404.229.5809. Mike reads every note himself and replies within a day.