Brand & narrative strategy · category design
I build brands that make complex things legible.
I come in where a company has something real but hasn't yet found the language to make people believe it, and build the system that closes the gap.
Hiring in-house or building your own story? Either way, start here, or see hiring / founder paths first.
Currently —open to Director / VP roles & select engagements
Narrative architecture — the positioning and messaging system a company makes decisions from; not a tagline, the infrastructure underneath one.
Category creation — naming or defining a market that doesn't yet exist, so a product's value is legible before anyone forces the wrong comparison.
$0 → $100M+
Pipeline grew from $0 to $100M+ in 30 months (FTE) — CalmWave, healthcare AI
45 → 20 min
Discovery calls cut from 45 to 20 minutes — narrative & positioning work
70x
70x revenue growth in 35 months — Vave Health, medtech
$50M
$50M pipeline at the LA Auto Show, 2017 — Tesla, 120+ staff, 20K leads
Healthcare AIMedical roboticsConsumer techTeslaCategory designZero-to-oneEkso BionicsPositioningDemand & pipelineVave HealthNarrative systemsCalmWave
Selected work — the transformation
I work at the zero-to-one moment. Before the category exists.
* Where a product is genuinely hard to explain, or a brand needs rebuilding on a foundation that no longer fits.
02 — services
Two ways to work together
A branding agency sells you a deliverable. A generalist marketer spreads thin across channels. This is the category and narrative infrastructure an in-house VP would own, built before you can justify hiring one.
For hiring teams
Bring a brand leader in-house
Fifteen years owning the full arc — brand and narrative through demand and pipeline — for AI, robotics, health tech, and consumer companies at the zero-to-one stage.
Case studies → Full background & tenure →For founders
Make the story finally land
Fixed-scope engagements for early teams: a positioning sprint, a category-narrative system, or a fractional head-of-brand retainer that gives you clarity you can build on.
Explore an engagement →03 — selected work
01
Naming the category
CalmWave — a product with no category, to $100M+ in pipeline
Healthcare AI
→
02
One company, two markets, zero confusion
Ekso Bionics — one brand spine, 5x lift in qualified leads
Robotics
→
03
A car into a cultural moment
Tesla — $50M pipeline, 20K leads at the LA Auto Show
Consumer · Auto
→
04
Credibility in a skeptical category
Vave Health — 70x revenue growth against entrenched incumbents
Medical devices
→
05
Waking a brand a decade dormant
Dimension Express — +10% subscription growth in Q1 of the rebrand
SaaS
→
Let's build something that matters.
Book a 30-min conversation
ashleylynnpola@gmail.com
linkedin.com/in/ashleypola
linkedin.com/in/ashleypola
FAQ
What does a brand and narrative strategist do?+
I build the positioning, messaging, and brand systems that let a company explain what it does clearly, the thinking underneath the visual identity, not just the identity itself. I work at the zero-to-one stage, before a category exists, through to enterprise scale.
What is narrative architecture?+
Narrative architecture is the system that governs how a company talks about itself, the positioning, messaging hierarchy, and story every team can build from without reinventing it department by department.
What is category creation?+
Category creation is the work of naming or defining a market that doesn't yet exist as a category, positioning a product so its value is legible before anyone forces a comparison to something it isn't. It's the work behind the CalmWave and Ekso Bionics case studies above.
What's the difference between branding and brand strategy?+
Branding is the visual and verbal expression: the logo, the palette, the voice. Brand strategy is the decision logic underneath it, who you're for, what you're not, and why that's true. I work primarily in the latter, though the engagements I run often include the former.
What's your approach to brand and narrative strategy?+
Every engagement starts the same way: a working session to pressure-test what's actually been built against how it's currently being described. That gap is usually where the real problem lives. From there, timeline and scope depend on the track: a Positioning Sprint runs 4–6 weeks, a full Category & Narrative System 6–10. See the Services page for what's included at each stage.
Where are you based?+
I'm based in Walnut Creek, California, and work with companies both locally in the Bay Area and remotely across the US.
Are you available for full-time roles, consulting, or both?+
Both. I'm actively open to Director/VP roles while running a small portfolio of retainer consulting engagements for founders. See the Services page for engagement types, or About for my full background.
How do I get in touch?+
Use the contact form, or email ashleylynnpola@gmail.com directly. I typically respond within a couple of business days.