For independent consultants: a team's output, without the team
AtlanticM&A6 min read
AtlanticM&A Independent is the plan for people who run programmes on their own: independent consultants and interim managers. The method, the working plan and the steering pack live in one place, and what leaves it for the client goes out under your name rather than ours.
The client hired judgement, and still expects a team's output
When a client brings in one senior person instead of a firm, they are paying for judgement. They still expect what a team would hand them: a Day 1 plan, a TSA tracker, a synergy model, a 100-day plan and a steering pack that is current every week. Working alone, you either build those at night or you let them slip.
I have done this work at large firms and independently since. Every programme used the same four artefacts, and I kept them by hand, engagement after engagement. The method held up. Rebuilding the artefacts by hand did not scale. That gap is what the Independent plan is for.
Your proposal is the plan
The work often starts before the engagement does. Take the client's brief into the sales call and build the plan with them watching: from a paragraph on the deal or programme, AI Power Build drafts a strategic direction, workstream charters and an outline work plan with its first wave dated, in minutes, on screen. The client stops comparing credentials and starts seeing how you would deliver. If you win, the plan you pitched becomes the live project, so there is nothing to rebuild on day one.
What you start with
On a new engagement, AI Power Build drafts the Strategic Direction, a charter for each workstream and an outline work plan with its first wave dated when you create the project. Every item is a draft you can change, and the audit log records what the build wrote and what you changed. Where a task needs more detail, "Add depth with AI" proposes the steps underneath it as Suggestions you Accept or Dismiss.
If the client already has a plan in Excel, bring it in rather than retype it. The columns are mapped for you and the indentation becomes the hierarchy.
The integration toolkit is on every plan, Independent included: TSA Tracker, Day 1 planning, synergy tracking, the 100-day plan and Change Management. So is Atlantic Intelligence, the assistant that answers questions about your project and shows where each answer came from.
Your name on what leaves
PowerPoint, PDF and outbound email go out under your brand and contact details, not ours. The deck the client forwards to their board carries your logo and colours. Excel and Word exports are available but unbranded today. Better you read that here than find it in front of a client.
If the client wants the pack in their own PowerPoint template, decks can print on it, with its master layouts and brand marks. That is available on request: we switch it on one account at a time.
Branding the platform itself, with your own subdomain and a named assistant (both in beta), is on the Firm plan rather than Independent. The deliverables are branded on both.
Your client's sponsor can also pull the current steering pack from Claude Desktop over MCP (the connector is in beta), built from live project data and under your brand. That means fewer "can you send me the latest" emails between meetings.
When the engagement ends
At the end of an engagement the project does not have to stay in your account. You can transfer it to your client's own AtlanticM&A account (in beta): its record goes with it, including the sign-offs and any Earnout Ledger, while people and their access do not, and you keep read-only access for 30, 60 or 90 days. The receiving account needs room under its project limit.
What you keep is the shape of the work. Save the project as a template and the next engagement starts from its workstreams, task tree, synergy categories and phases, with owners, dates and progress cleared. Or copy it, and start a full new project from the one you already have.
Between engagements
Independent work comes in blocks, with gaps between them. On monthly billing you can put the account on Hold. Your projects, templates and history stay intact and read-only, and when the next engagement starts you are back at work straight away. Hold costs $125 a month.
How the plan works
Independent covers one or two active projects, priced per project, with 3 seats and 25 stakeholders on each. If your client already uses AtlanticM&A, they can add you to their account instead, on their plan. The pricing page has the current figures, and a calculator on the Independents page that opens on your day rate and works from your own numbers. You can buy Independent straight away, or start with the trial.
The trial runs for fourteen days with no credit card: one project, one seat and every feature. Generated downloads such as decks and workbooks need a plan, so the branded pack is the one thing you will not hand a client during the trial. Members of the IIM can ask us for a longer trial.
It is a subscription you rent for as long as the work needs it. The method comes with it. The judgement is still the reason the client hired you.
About AtlanticM&A
AtlanticM&A is the Agentic Transformation OS. Its agents work inside the programme, both augmenting and automating the work of the transformation team: work plans, governance, stakeholders and reporting in one place, with a live value bridge that moves as the work does. It is a system of work rather than only being a system of record: the charter is written in it and the plan is built in it. Meeting notes come back as proposed updates to the plan and the RAID log, the team decides what stands, and every change the AI makes carries an audit trail. The platform does the slide-building, status reporting and stakeholder briefings that usually keep a consulting pyramid busy, so a small senior team can run the programme more nimbly and for less.