Membership
Peer groups for leaders who need more than good conversation.
Allied Executives is built for business owners and senior leaders who want relevant peer input, disciplined meetings, experienced facilitation, and accountability that continues after the conversation ends.
What Allied Executives is. Why it works.
Allied Executives is a high-accountability peer group organization for Strategic Operators, the leaders responsible for company performance regardless of their title.
- This is not networking.
- Not a mastermind.
- Not coaching dressed up as peer input.
Members bring real business issues into facilitated, confidential conversations designed to improve decision-making, strengthen follow-through, and help leaders operate at a higher level.
Who It Is Built For
Allied Executives is built for founders, owners, CEOs, presidents, successors, and senior executives leading growing companies across the Twin Cities.
Members do not need identical titles, companies, or challenges. They need peers whose experience is relevant, whose perspective is honest, and who understand the weight of the decisions in front of them.
Why Right-Fit Matters
As a business grows, the decisions change, and so does the kind of perspective a leader needs around the table. A title tells only part of the story. What matters more is the complexity of the business, the responsibility the leader carries, and whether the people in the group understand the decisions in front of them.
Leaders often recognize themselves in one of four common operating stages. The lines are not always clean, and it is normal to see parts of more than one.
Carrying Too Much
The business still depends heavily on you. Decisions wait for your input, problems return to your desk, and time away can expose gaps the team is not yet ready to handle. The work at this stage is to build the systems, habits, and leadership capacity that allow responsibility to move beyond the owner.
Building the Machine
You have a team and some structure, but the business does not yet run with the consistency you need. Everyone may understand what should happen, yet execution still depends on your involvement. This is where relevant peers can help you see where accountability is unclear, where the company remains too dependent on you, and what needs attention first.
Scaling With Discipline
The company has traction, but growth has brought more complexity. Margins may be tighter, decisions slower, or the systems that once worked may no longer be enough. The challenge is to keep growth from weakening focus, culture, or profitability while strengthening the operating discipline needed for the next phase.
Building to Endure
The business no longer depends on you in the same way, which brings a different set of decisions. Succession, leadership continuity, ownership transition, enterprise value, and your own next chapter begin to matter more. At this stage, peers with relevant experience can help you weigh the tradeoffs and think beyond the immediate decision.
Allied Executives' Right-Fit process is built for this reality. The goal is not to put every leader in the same kind of group. It is to place each member with peers whose experience matches the responsibility they are carrying now, and to keep working with them as those needs change.
What Membership Includes
Right-Fit Peer Groups
A right-fit peer group. Members meet with noncompeting leaders whose experience and business context make the conversation useful.
Experienced Facilitation
A facilitator protects the meeting structure, helps the group reach the real issue, and keeps every member engaged.
Between-meeting Support
When a decision cannot wait, members can work with their facilitator to clarify the issue, prepare for a conversation, or decide what belongs in front of the group.
Executive Workshops and Events
Members and their teams can learn from experienced speakers and address current business issues together.
The Broader Allied Community
Membership creates access to the experience and relationships of business leaders across the Twin Cities.
Groups for Different Leadership Seats
Allied Executives serves owners and CEOs, senior executives, and sales leaders, with placement based on responsibility and experience.
Experience It First
The best way to judge a peer group is to experience it. Prospective members can attend a meeting before making a decision, see how the conversation works, and determine whether the group is relevant to the decisions they are carrying.
Allied Executives' Right-Fit Promise is straightforward: we will work with you until the placement is right. We do not use unnecessary contracts to keep someone in a group that is not serving them.
Helpful FAQ’s
Would I make a good member?
You will benefit exponentially from involvement if you are a learner, want to grow yourself and your business, are interested in doing so more effectively and efficiently, and will seek to provide as much value to the other members of your group as you receive.
Beyond these requirements, those who stay totally involved in the meetings, are open-minded, and communicate well with others stand to create the best possible future for themselves and their firm.
Beyond these characteristics, we best serve business leaders from companies ranging $1M to $500M in revenue, from all industries and businesses headquartered in MN, that are seeking to grow and improve.
What benefits can I expect?
The separation and space of a peer group provides each CEO or business owner the opportunity to step back and view their challenges and opportunities from a different perspective. The benefits are wide and varied. Many benefits can be very specific ROI cases depending on the challenge or opportunity.
As a member, you will be exposed to a greater variety of resources, strategies, and advice not available to you in any other forum.
What is a peer group?
A professionally built and led group, made up of 10-14 members, which meets monthly to help each other take their business to the next level.
The peer group will provide you with an experienced group of advisors - and a seasoned facilitator - who can offer you advice, feedback, and critical thinking around the challenges you all share in common.
Who leads the peer group and what is their role?
Each peer group is facilitated by an Allied Executives facilitator. Each facilitator is a former member and/or current CEO or business owner. The role of the facilitator is to chair the meetings, keep meetings on time and on point, ensure there is strong motivation behind the group, help each member understand one another’s unique contribution, and deliver the outcomes each member is striving for as part of their being involved.
What is the structure of a peer group meeting?
Each peer group meeting meets once a month for a half day, on the same date and time each month (i.e., 3rd Tuesday, 9 AM). It is the facilitator’s role to ensure each meeting remains on target, on time, and on point. Each meeting follows a specific agenda and format to ensure each member is heard from and has an opportunity to receive feedback from the group. Members within a group are non-competitive.
How do you put together a group?
Members are placed specifically with executives and owners who share their level of experience and responsibility and whose businesses are at a similar growth stage.
Members are from non-competitive firms, have a variety of educational and cultural backgrounds, and possess different ages, genders, and points of view.
Our goal is to create an environment in which, collectively, there is no experiential or expertise blind spot.
What is unique about an Allied Executives peer group?
Our structure. We are a MN company, with MN members. Each facilitator is a former Allied Member, business owner, and works directly for our firm. This allows us to focus on our members and ensure that everything we do and offer is with them in mind. We have the flexibility, size, and culture that allows for our members to always be in the right group for them and receiving the maximum benefit.
Do you have peer groups for non-CEOs or owners?
Yes we do! We have mixed key executive (CMO, COO, CFO, et al.), Sales Management, and Sales Producer peer groups.
Click on the links to learn more about each group type.
How do I apply for membership?
We have a simple three-step process. Step one is to complete our membership application.
The simple assessment will provide us with a little bit of advanced information about you and your organization and help us determine what type of group may be right-fit for you. Step two is to meet with an Allied Executives principal so we each have an opportunity to learn more about each other. After completing the membership assessment, an Allied team member will reach out to you to set up that meeting.
Step three is to experience a peer group first-hand. We believe fit is critically important and work with you and our members to find that perfect group fit.
Kurt Theriault & John Palen
President & CEO
Find Your Tribe. Become a Stronger Business Owner. Maximize Your Life’s Work.
Getting started is easy. Schedule a short call and begin the process of finding a “right-fit” peer group for you.
- Determine the “Right-Fit” Group for You.
- Experience a Meeting
- Become a Stronger Owner. Grow a Strong Business.