Empowering research leaders to drive lasting and meaningful impact.

Hi, I’m Chris Pahlow 👋 I provide strategic consulting tailored to the unique challenges that research leaders face. My holistic approach is designed to help you build relationships with all the key players who matter most to your work’s success.

✓ Secure sustainable funding.

✓ Build strong partnerships and collaborations.

✓ Recruit and retain the best talent.

✓ Shape your projects and teams for impact.

Is the future of your research org keeping you up at night?

✖ Concerned about your organisation's long-term financial sustainability?

✖ Frustrated by misalignment between your team's efforts and your core mission?

✖ Struggling to attract the right talent, collaborators, and partners?

✖ Questioning the return on investment from current engagement and comms efforts?

✖ Sick of seeing comms from your organisation that either don't get the research right or alienate a general audience?

Want your research to drive impact that's worth celebrating?

Let's make sure all the right stakeholders are invited to the party.

“Chris helped me break a Cat 1 funding drought! He helped us communicate the benefit of our work to society, which was crucial in finally securing an ARC Discovery grant.”

Prof. Phillip Dawson
Co-Director, Centre for Research in Assessment and Digital Learning

“Chris helped me focus on what the audience needs and how they need to hear it. He delivered a high-quality product that we'll be using for years to come.”

A/Prof. Nikki Moodie
Deputy Director, Atlantic Fellows for Social Equity

“Chris has been instrumental in helping us move from our startup phase to a new way of working. He has helped us hone our messages and create new leadership and governance structures and has done it with sensitivity and pragmatism. Chris brings knowledge, creativity, and compassion to his work along with extraordinary design sense. His understanding of the research world is valuable in helping craft a strategy that works in our ecosystem. I would work with him again in a second.”

Prof. Wendy Chapman
Director, Centre for Digital Transformation of Health

“Chris has provided invaluable support in unpacking the complexities of projects involving multiple stakeholders with different priorities. I would not hesitate to recommend Chris for any consultancy work focused on strategic communications and engagement. He'll support you in meeting objectives while challenging you to consider things from a different perspective.“

Marnie Long
Manager, Careers & Employability, the University of Melbourne

How we can
work together

Some of the key areas
we can tackle together:




Org strategy & alignment

Clarifying your org design, culture, and impact plan to support your long-term success. Especially important when building new orgs, responding to organisational reviews, or forming alliances/networks.




Stakeholder analysis

Identifying and understanding the people who matter most to your organisation’s success.




Org identity & key messaging

Defining a clear, compelling, and consistent voice for your organisation.




Strategic comms & engagement

Strengthening relationships through targeted comms and engagement.




Comms infrastructure & workflows

Building efficient systems and workflows to support effective engagement.




Preparing for high-stakes engagements

Preparing your team to handle make-or-break engagements with confidence.

A holistic & iterative approach designed to set your org up for success.

We’ve all seen strategy documents that gather dust for years, websites that are out of date the moment they launch, and comms or engagement initiatives that don’t deliver real results..

Generating meaningful, sustained outcomes doesn’t come from one-off “silver bullet” projects.

It comes from a holistic approach that considers the key focus areas above in an integrated way, rather than tackling them in isolation…

Putting your best foot forward with careful analysis and strategic thinking before diving into the deep end…

And continual evaluation and improvement to refine what works and respond as your organisation evolves or the context changes.

Here’s the structured approach I use —

  • Step 1: Initial strategic roadmapping – We’ll clarify your goals, challenges, and priorities, then develop a tailored strategic roadmap so your team can focus effort where it matters most.

  • Step 2: Build alignment for impact – Not even the best external comms plans can trump a team that’s aligned behind a mission and impact plan they’re passionate about. Let’s make sure that your team has the structure, governance, and culture it needs to bring that impact plan to life.

  • Step 3: Craft targeted strategies – Together, we’ll develop targeted strategies to engage the stakeholders who matter most to the success of your mission and your organisation.

  • Step 4: Turn your strategies into action – It’s time to start implementing and tracking your strategies in the wild.

  • Step 5: Continuously embed & improve – While one-off projects can help move the needle, meaningful long-term impact comes from continuous improvement. I can support your team to embed new practices, adapt to insights, and refine strategies over time.

Start with clarity and confidence

Step 1: Initial strategic roadmapping
$10,000 AUD + GST

There are countless things you could spend your precious time and funding on — but they won’t all deliver the results you want.

Even when research orgs invest in the right kinds of activities, too often those investments happen in the wrong order or without a clear strategy. I’ve seen too many examples of research organisations spending years and tens (or even hundreds) of thousands of dollars on initiatives that don’t generate meaningful outcomes. 

Every org is at a different stage, so let’s get started by carving out a small portion of your total budget so that we can analyse, strategise, and develop a plan that’s tailored to your organisation — one that’s all about long-term sustainability and maximising your return on investment.

I’ll work closely with your team to understand your unique opportunities and challenges, identify the most relevant focus areas and steps, and develop a practical roadmap that prioritises work that’s most likely to make a difference to your organisation.

Not ready for roadmapping, but have something urgent or specific you need immediate advice on? Get started with a one-off consult for $1,350 AUD + GST per session.

Book in a call to see if we’re a good fit to work together.