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This is the third part of our Win Trust, Win Six Figures series about establishing a trusted brand as an independent consultant. In the last two issues, Angie Jones broke down how to define the narrative that earns people’s trust, and Candyce Edelen showed us how to turn that perspective into thought leadership content.

Now, we have Pradnya Haldipur to show us what happens when someone executes this advice under real pressure. 

When Pradnya Haldipur kept getting asked the same question: "What organization are you with?" For the first time in her career, she didn't have an easy answer.

She left a senior role at Doctors Without Borders, where she'd led a team responsible for close to $150M in annual philanthropic revenue, to build an independent consulting practice. Twelve months in, she was doing better than she'd expected— just without the institutional name that used to open every door.

That experience—having to explain who she was without the brand behind her, makes her the perfect person for our next podcast episode.

We first talked to Pradnya during the first few months after she launched her independent practice. We brought her back a year later to see what happened and ask her a few things we missed the first time around. (Replay that episode here.)

Let’s get into it.

It’s officially been a year since you launched your practice. What’s changed since we last talked?

Pradnya: It kind of crept up on me, to be honest. The official one-year anniversary of establishing my LLC was August 5, and pretending the whole consulting thing wasn’t just a thing in my head.

I mentioned last time that I had an anchor client, and that client stayed with me throughout the year. I hope that continues to be a long-term relationship. But the biggest difference between where I started and where I am now is that finally, a year later, my shoulders are relaxing a bit.

It’s starting to feel like maybe this can be a long-term proposition. It’s gone from feeling like the thing I’m doing for now until I go back in-house, to the thing I’m enjoying so much that I don’t want to go back in-house.

Once you had the anchor client, you still tried to throw spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks. What did you actually do, and how much time did you spend on continual outreach and biz dev?

Pradnya: I wish I could describe a formal framework for this, but two things happened.

One, a couple of clients approached me and said, "Now that you're doing this, can we do it more formally?" And as far as the spaghetti goes, what I continue to be focused on is that now that I'm not in-house, there are things I want to say about my experience on the way the nonprofit sector is functioning or not functioning.

I've just been focused on it. I've been doing podcasts, speaking at conferences, and writing a whole lot. In that way, people have come to know me.

What's wonderful is that because I'm at that point in my life where I say what I think, potential clients who reach out to me already know that about me. They already know what my perspective is on things like revenue diversification, organizational structure, the role of the board, all of these things that are common across organizations.

Some of them have the potential to do extraordinary things because they're willing to think differently.

How do you deal with your ego now that you don't have a big brand associated with you?

Pradnya: That is such a fantastic question. I think that struggle is true for consultants working in any sector.

I've been very lucky to work for some brand-name organizations throughout my career, names people would recognize. And that comes with a certain amount of implicit trust and recognition.

The first time I felt out of place was at London Climate Action Week. Lots of events, lots of meetings, and the first question everybody leads with is, "What organization are you with?"

They're looking for quick, easy responses like, "I'm with the Youth Climate Justice Fund," or so-and-so. I had to figure out how to conceal my discomfort and have an answer that felt good to me.

My answer became: I am not with a single organization. I'm a social good consultant, and I have clients in the climate sector. 

I felt great about it, because once you let go of missing "I work with Doctors Without Borders," it forces people in one of two directions. Some walk away, that happens everywhere. But mostly what I got was, "What do you mean? Tell me what that is. What do you do?

I specifically chose to leave out nonprofit or fundraising. I've embraced the words "social good," because that can mean a lot of things.

In that conversation, it was about how I care about the work being done. I engage with organizations in whatever manner I can be most valuable to them.

It's another soapbox I've been on, that we've got to stop calling ourselves the nonprofit sector – because nonprofit isn’t a thing, it’s a tax designation. The trouble I have with that word is that it gives people the idea these organizations don't need money, that they're not trying to make money, when in fact, it means we need the money to do the work we're trying to do.

Once that human connection isn't there yet, is that when the brand comes back in – as a kind of trust checklist people run before you've actually connected?

Pradnya: In real time, I think that's right. But in full transparency, if you go to my LinkedIn right now, you'll see it says "former Doctors Without Borders."

They'll see that and Boston Children's, that's there. But that's not what makes for a human-to-human conversation. It certainly doesn’t make for a good client-consultant conversation, because it never gets me to what I wish to do in a conversation, which is: tell me about you.

People always lean into the thing they're actually concerned about, the thing that somebody who is authentically interested in what they're saying can draw out. That doesn't require the brand name.

What We Can Learn from Pradnya Haldipur:

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The SCI Framework is consulting 101 for a reason.

It’s one of the simplest ways to frame a problem and make sure you and your client are solving the same one.

Start with the Situation (the relevant context), define the Complication (what’s getting in the way), and land on the Implication (the “so what?” that makes change necessary).

Use it at the start of an engagement to align on the problem — or at the start of a meeting to get everyone on the same page, fast.

Simple? Yes. Useful? Constantly.

Let’s imagine a fractional COO called in to support a manufacturing company. 

Leadership says, “We have a delivery problem.” Instead of jumping into fixes, she uses SCI to reframe it.

That framing shifts the conversation from “speed up shipping” to fixing production planning – the problem actually driving the pain.

👉 Get a copy of this framework here.