How Egret Endeavor came to be

Clarity for organisations in motion

Egret Endeavor works with founders, leadership teams, and public-sector bodies in Portugal and across the Iberian Peninsula on strategy, organisational design, and the kind of decisions that tend to get deferred.

Founder · Mariana Fonseca

Morning view over Lisbon rooftops, the city where Egret Endeavor's consulting practice is rooted

Mariana Fonseca left a senior role at a Lisbon consultancy in the spring of 2019 with one clear conviction: most strategy work was being done at too great a distance from the people who had to carry it out. The firms she had worked alongside were producing thorough, well-formatted reports that sat in shared drives and changed very little. She wanted to work differently, which meant working smaller, staying longer, and being honest when the answer was not what the client hoped to hear.

The name came from a walk along the Tagus estuary near Alcochete, where egrets stand completely still in moving water and then move with sudden precision. It felt like the right image for the kind of thinking she wanted to do: patient, specific, and not easily startled. The first client was a family-owned ceramics exporter in Caldas da Rainha that needed to decide whether to open a second production site. The answer, after six weeks of work, was no. The client thanked her for saving them from a decision they had already half-committed to.

Most strategy work is done at too great a distance from the people who carry it out.

Engagements and formats

Strategy Sprint

From 4 800 EUR

A four-week structured process for leadership teams facing a significant decision. Two full-day workshops bookend a diagnostic phase in which we interview key stakeholders and review existing data. The output is a written synthesis document, not a slide deck, that the team can actually use.

Organisational Audit

From 6 500 EUR

Three to six weeks of structured observation, interviews, and workflow mapping across the organisation. The final report names what is causing friction and why, written in plain language. We present findings verbally before anything is written down.

Retained Advisory

1 800 EUR / month

Monthly access to Mariana Fonseca for ongoing strategic counsel. Typically two calls per month plus availability for urgent questions. Suited to founders and CEOs who want a thinking partner who already knows the context.

Facilitated Offsite

From 3 200 EUR

We design and run a one or two-day offsite for your leadership team. Agenda architecture, pre-work design, live facilitation, and a written record of decisions made. Partner venues available in Cascais and Comporta.

Transition Coaching

From 2 400 EUR

Six one-to-one sessions over three months for leaders navigating a new role, a difficult mandate, or a significant personal transition at work. Structured reflection between sessions is part of the format.

What we actually do

Strategy under uncertainty

When the market has shifted and the old plan no longer fits, we help leadership teams think through what they actually know, what they are assuming, and what the next 18 months need to look like. Not a slide deck. A working document.

Organisational design

Structures that made sense at 12 people often stop working at 40. We map how decisions actually get made, where information stalls, and what a leaner, clearer shape might look like for the next stage.

Change and transition support

Mergers, leadership changes, pivots, and restructures all create a period where the organisation is neither what it was nor what it is becoming. We work alongside teams during that in-between time.

News & Announcements

2026-06-10

When Strategy Documents Stop Working and Why

There is a particular kind of meeting that happens in organisations around the world, including many in Portugal, where someone opens a shared drive, finds the strategy document from eighteen months ago, and everyone in the room quietly agrees not to mention that almost none of it has happened. This is not a failure of ambition. It is usually a failure of design.

2026-05-28

How to Design a Leadership Offsite That Actually Works

Most leadership offsites are designed by the person who is also running them, under time pressure, with a vague brief that amounts to 'make it useful.' The result is usually a day of presentations followed by a dinner where the real conversations happen. There is a better way to do this.

2026-04-15

Organisational Design: When to Restructure and When to Wait

Restructuring is one of the most disruptive things an organisation can do to itself. It consumes enormous amounts of leadership attention, creates uncertainty for staff, and takes longer to settle than anyone expects. It is also sometimes exactly the right thing to do. The difficulty is knowing which situation you are in.