Advisory Practice
Who This Is For
Financial services, government, critical infrastructure operators, and small firms building capability in this space. EU-focused; global coordination when relevant.
Proper Tools supports organizations facing long-lived infrastructure risk — especially epoch rollover events, embedded timing dependencies, and cross-sector coupling where competent actors lack a shared map. Hard problems made legible, with deliverables leaders can act on.
If you're not sure whether what you're facing fits here, that's normal. Most engagements begin with a short conversation to see whether there is a useful role for Proper Tools.
This work often happens in rooms where the stakes are real and the answer is not immediately obvious — across standards bodies, government coordination, and private leadership settings.
Typical Engagement Patterns
Below are a few representative engagement patterns.
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Executive Briefing Before a Strategic Decision
A leadership team preparing for a major transition needs a clear mental model of the risk landscape. Proper Tools produces a short executive briefing translating technical realities into decision-ready language, followed by a facilitated discussion with the leadership team. -
Cross-Sector Workshop to Align Stakeholders
A government agency, operator group, or standards body needs multiple actors to agree on a path forward despite disagreement. Proper Tools designs and facilitates a structured workshop that surfaces the actual points of disagreement, iterates towards consensus, and produces documented decisions and next steps. -
Fractional Advisory
An organization building internal capability benefits from outside perspective without adding headcount. A small monthly advisory engagement provides prioritization frameworks, translation between technical and leadership audiences, and defensible documentation for governance and regulators. -
Independent Thinking Partner for a Senior Leader
A CISO, infrastructure executive, or policy lead needs a confidential sounding board outside their reporting chain. Monthly sessions provide space to test assumptions, pressure-test narratives, and think clearly about decisions that will shape the organization’s direction.
How Engagements Work
Proper Tools engagements are intentionally small and focused. The goal is not to produce analysis that sits on a shelf, but to create clarity leaders can act on.
Work typically begins with a short conversation to determine whether there is a genuine fit. If there is, engagements are scoped narrowly and executed quickly — often producing decision-ready artifacts within weeks rather than months.
When the problem requires broader expertise, Proper Tools coordinates with trusted specialists across security, infrastructure operations, and standards communities.
Facilitation & Convening
Workshop design and facilitation for organizations working through complex decisions — whether the complexity is technical, political, organizational, or all three.
Trey has facilitated in international standards bodies, government institutions, corporate leadership settings, and on film sets. The common thread is rooms where smart people disagree and something needs to move forward.
Trained in ICA's Technologies of Participation (ToP) methods. Pursuing IAF Certified Professional Facilitator (CPF) designation.
Deliverable: structured dialogue, decisions captured, and a clear path forward.
Fractional Advisory
Part-time embedded advisory for leadership teams navigating continuity risk, technical translation, and governance clarity — without adding headcount.
Typical engagements: 2–4 days/month. The organization is the client. Deliverables include prioritization frameworks, defensible communication, and decision-ready documentation.
Confidential Sounding Board
A monthly, MNDA-covered session for senior security and infrastructure leaders who need a thinking partner outside their reporting chain. One to two hours per month, plus reasonable async availability.
No slides, no deliverables, no reporting back to anyone. You are the client — not your organization. Structured, confidential conversation with someone who understands the weight of the role.
Research & Observatory Collaboration
Contribution to research on systemic dependencies, time synchronization, and rollover risk observability.
Focused on durable work that remains useful beyond news cycles.
Executive & Board Briefings
Tailored briefings that make complex risk legible: rollover timelines, cyber-physical dependencies, regulatory interfaces, and the evolving standards landscape.
Deliverable: shared mental model, practical risk register outline, and defensible next-step options.
Side project (open): I’m assembling a small, vetted reviewer group for a CC-BY 30-minute executive briefing workshop on 2038-class time risk. If you operate in leadership briefing environments and want to help pressure-test the framing before I release it, get in touch and tell me a bit about yourself and what audiences you routinely brief.
Expert Witness & Technical Testimony
Neutral technical expert services for legal proceedings involving systemic infrastructure risk or timing-related failures.
Available as testifying expert or through referral to qualified specialists.
Standards & Policy Alignment
Guidance on rollover risk in relation to NIS2, DORA, CRA, and standards work across FIRST, ITU-T, and IETF.
Deliverable: coordination clarity, defensible governance posture, and evidence-ready documentation.
Working Assumptions
- Hard failures are often preceded by long periods of legibility failure.
- Shared maps matter more than individual certainty.
- Cross-sector dependency is where small technical issues become strategic problems.
- Good coordination leaves behind evidence, not just impressions.
Engagement & Rates
Proper Tools takes on a limited number of engagements each year. Work is priced at senior independent advisory rates, stated upfront to avoid performative negotiation and allow both sides to focus on whether the work itself is a good fit.
Rates may be adjusted for unusually consequential or public-interest work.
Paying client work enables the publication of CC-BY research, frameworks, and tools intended to accelerate ecosystem-wide remediation.
Standard MSA and NDA available upon request.
Curated Engagements
From time to time, Proper Tools takes on work outside its core practice — for individuals, small teams, or early-stage ventures wrestling with hard problems.
These engagements are rarely about budgets or job titles. They tend to begin with someone saying, “Something strange is happening here, and we need a second brain to think it through.”
If you're facing a problem that feels unusual, consequential, or difficult to explain — reach out and tell me a bit about it. If it's not a fit, I'll say so directly and point you somewhere better if I can.
Some of the best work begins with a conversation that doesn't yet have a category.