LEV JANASHVILI

With clients and prospective clients, I describe myself as a special-purpose advisor. Depending on the needs of the moment, I may emphasize various aspects of my services, but what stays constant in my points of emphasis is the idea of special purposes. So, I organize my services this idea.Special purposes arise when standard protocols fail, when our inherited maps of meaning seem as reliable as maps of the world drawn before the Copernican revolution. In the gap between map and territory, special purposes express more than a desire for renewed coherence. They express a commitment to invest in cartographic correction.The discovery of cartographic error or malpractice typically brings people and organizations to a fork in the road. They can choose the path of denialism. That means they defiantly continue to assert the accuracy of inherited maps, despite evidence to the contrary. Or, they can become post-denialists. That means they start drawing better maps.As a post-denialist, I don't exclude denialists from my advisory practice, but they rarely come knocking on my door. When they do, it's usually not for the reason they claim. Either way, I've organized my work around the needs of people and organizations drawn to the post-denialist horizon. In my experience, one of the clearest needs for the post-denialist cohort is to shift focus from problem-solving to cultivating fruitful responses to problems behind problems.

In 2025, I reorganized my practice to protect myself and my clients from the perverse incentives of the "attention economy". As a result, what distinguishes my work most clearly isn't any specific service I provide, but the environment in which I provide all my services. It's an environment unpolluted by ad-driven technologies, censorship, and surveillance. It's an environment built on the idea of earned attention and mutual trust.I don't publish my work on social media. I deleted my Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter account years ago. Substack, too, is now in the rear-view mirror. This website, published in August 2026, is the main "synapse" connecting me to the "public domain". With clients, partners and media contacts, I mainly communicate through encrypted email, phone calls, video sessions, and in-person meetings.

For both individual and institutional clients, the reason to hire me is that they've tried the standard protocols and the alternatives, and they now recognize the urgent need for alternatives to alternatives.Whether cartographic error affects you in your personal or professional life, the experience can be disorienting, if not devastating. Naturally, reorientation becomes a special purpose, and distraction becomes the clearest stumbling block.In this context, my approach to understanding media isn't a hindrance, but simply one of the reasons to hire me. Other reason to hire me include:

This website covers everything that's fit to print about my advisory practice, including the fine print. For everything else, use the form below to submit a question, problem statement or an engagement mandate.

Ask Me Anything (AMA)

If your situation is still too ambiguous to frame a formal problem statement or present an engagement mandate, you can schedule a paid 1-hour AMA session. We can use this time to stress-test an idea, diagnose an institutional roadblock or discuss the possibility of a full engagement.

In Brief

Let's begin by naming the problem, the remedy and the price.

With clients and prospective clients, I describe myself as a special-purpose advisor. Depending on the needs of the moment, I may emphasize various aspects of my services, but what stays constant in my points of emphasis is the idea of special purposes. So, I organize my services around the idea that special purposes arise when standard protocols fail.We can attribute these failures to numerous causes. I focus on causes behind causes, problems behind problems. To begin, I’ll name three problems that help explain the rising frequency of standard protocol failures.

The remedy I offer is not a product but a process that I call Dialogue as a Service (DaaS). This is a proprietary, human-in-the-loop advisory model designed to provide post-ideological, post-cynical, research-based responses to complex questions, hypotheses, and problem statements.DaaS is an LLM-assisted engagement that extracts actionable insights either from a single conversation or artifact, or from voluminous raw data in disparate formats. This synthesis is deliverable through four tiers of service, all relying on the extraction of meaning from unprocessed or inadequately data. In all four engagement tiers, the process is facilitated by a human thought partner.

This tiered remedy is ideal for individuals and institutions who already know better than to hire McKinsey or to turn to Madison Avenue. (The remedy is available in English and Russian.)

The fee for Tier 1 engagements is $650. The fee for Tier 2 engagements is $2,000. Tier 3 and Tier 4 ongoing engagements offer the option of $500 monthly add-ons for asynchronous follow-up Q&A.

When standard protocols fail, the mind naturally defaults to denial. It doubles down on its reality-defying belief in “naked emperors” and “sacred cows”. When forced to confront reality, the mind shifts to alternatives: perhaps, a different outfit for the emperor, or a new sacred cow. When this new layer of covert denial is incinerated by continuing confrontations with reality, the mind begins to explore alternatives to alternatives. I support this exploration with three analytical lenses.

Bio

I bring 30 years of corporate and post-corporate experience to my advisory practice.

During my post-corporate period, I engaged in a deep self-directed study of the problem with "problems" and prevailing approaches to problem-solving. My role as an SPA grew out of this decade-long immersion.

Present

2016 to 2026 (Post-Corporate Practice: Seeking Alternatives to Alternatives)

2006 to 2016 (Seeking Alternatives to Standard Protocols)

1996 to 2006 (Working with Standard Protocols)

1992 to 1996 (College Years: Introduction to Inherited Maps)

Publications

I've organized my publications into the following categories:

Publications: Start Here

September 11, 2026

I work with leaders, founders, and institutions on special-purpose mandates born from the failures of standard protocols. For clients with such mandates, I outline four reasons to hire me:

(5 pages)

• Download PDF

September 4, 2026

Drawing on the classic allegory of the Emperor's New Clothes, this paper offers a meta-skeptic's guide for navigating institutional delusion, willful ignorance, and systemic false authority. Through ten Frequently Unasked Questions (FUQs), it explores how to cultivate epistemic sovereignty, build "Arks of Trust" outside the attention economy, and move beyond binary "blue pill vs. red pill" choices toward meaningful, post-ideological action. (25 pages)

• Download PDF

Publications: The SPA Journal

The SPA Journal focuses on the inter-disciplinary study of the protocols that shape our world and the special purposes that arise when protocols cling to relevance and legitimacy beyond their usefulness. Each edition of the SPA Journal is an edited record of a human-to-LLM conversation.

The SPA Journal - September 17, 2026

Like the fish oblivious to the water they swim in, we are often unaware of the destructive protocols that shape our world. We are often equally ignorant of the counter-protocols we can design and deploy in self-defense. Increased protocol awareness is the path to both diagnosis and life-sustaining remedies. (11 pages)

• Download PDF

Publications: Essays

Coming soon

Publications: Archive

The Fiscal Times - March 11, 2014

In this essay, I pointed to a collective tendency to react to specific cases of fraud with an obsessional and myopic sensationalism that obscures the broader context of causes and consequences. Drawing on my experience in ESG research, I described these fraud cases as "routine anomalies". (5 pages)

• Download PDF

BusinessInsider - February 12, 2013

A chain-smoking, beer-drinking 80-year-old makes a great character in a documentary film, but this biological oddity hardly qualifies as a role model for people who want to live long and healthy lives. This statement of the obvious was the beginning of an argument in favor of ESG research. (4 pages)

• Download PDF

BusinessInsider - November 26, 2012

Co-authored with my late boss Jim Kaplan, this essay was a told-you-so celebration of my then-employer's approach to quantifying the risk of accounting fraud. Shortly after our research team had placed Hewlett-Packard on the "Black Swan Risk List", the company announced a massive write-down related to its acquisition of Autonomy. (4 pages)

• Download PDF

PRWeek - January 23, 2012

In 2012, I was still holding on to my career in corporate communications in part because I had convinced myself that the crisis of trust would force the PR industry to rethink its methods. I expressed this belief in one of the most popular trade publications. I was wrong. The industry continued to double down on its trust-crushing MO. (4 pages)

• Download PDF

Current Services

I currently offer four tiers of flat-fee, defined-scope services organized around a single deliverable: a monograph providing a research-based, post-ideological response to a question, hypothesis or problem statement. I offer single-monograph engagements (Tiers 1 and 2) and ongoing engagements (Tiers 3 and 4).

As a genre of scholarly literature, the monograph emerged in the early 1800s as historians, scientists, and social researchers sought a way to break out of the constraints of the academic journal article. While a typical journal article reported isolated findings or preliminary data, the monograph provided a more spacious format. Here, writers could trace a single problem to its structural roots, map an entire argument, and present comprehensive evidence without dilution.Over time, the monograph became the gold standard and cornerstone of rigorous academic publishing in the humanities and social sciences. It rejected broad, generalized summaries in favor of depth. As a Special Purpose Advisor focused on cartographic correction, I am reviving the monograph format as a superior alternative to the superficial brevity of corporate slide decks and executive summaries.Just as traditional monographs were built to rescue vital insights from specialized obscurity, my advisory monographs are engineered to isolate signal from institutional noise, providing post-denialist leaders with an uncompromised, archival-grade map of their operational reality.I offer two types of single-monograph engagements. In 3-day engagements, the monograph is based on the record of our conversation. In 7-day engagements, the monograph is based on existing data. Both these and the ongoing engagements are forms of Dialogue as a Service (DaaS), a format for post-ideological, post-cynical, research-based responses to questions and problem statements.

The 3-day engagement begins with a recorded conversation. No preparation is required, only the intention to discuss something that warrants the dedicated attention of a human thought partner. The "something" doesn't have to be a pre-identified "naked emperor", "sacred cow" or a clear statement of a "special purpose". It could be a question, a problem statement, a hypothesis, or an artifact like a book, essay, or video.After the session, I study the record of our conversation using a combination of my human abilities and the computational power of advanced Large Language Models (LLMs). Through iterative prompting and my own reflection, I isolate answerable questions, unexamined assumptions, alternative perspectives, unrecognized opportunities and threats.Within three days following our session, you receive a monograph that prioritizes cartographic correction, increased coherence, real connection, and tactical preparedness for confrontations with defenders of failed protocols. The monograph is typically about 10 pages in length. This is not a sales pitch, but a deeply considered response unpolluted by unexamined presuppositions.

The 7-day Tier 2 engagement begins with a data dump. Unlike the 3-day option, the weeklong engagement doesn’t require a live conversation to generate raw material for synthesis. This engagement is designed for clients who already have a "haystack" of existing materials (e.g., meeting transcripts, research decks, strategy documents, video recordings, internal memos, or voluminous notes.)Before we start the clock, you submit these materials along with a brief statement of orientation. I perform a deep audit of this dataset, deploying advanced Large Language Models (LLMs) and applying my own analysis to filter the noise, trace previously unnoticed patterns, and locate the needle you are looking for.At the end of the 7 days, we meet for a live presentation and debrief. You receive a comprehensive, archival-grade monograph, typically more than 25 pages long. This document is designed to map your risk exposure and untapped opportunities, identify sacred cows or naked emperors, and provide an actionable blueprint for your next move.

The "Active File" ongoing engagement is an off-calendar option for clients who require continuous priority access, file maintenance, and iterative reflection on the monographs produced through 3-day or 7-day engagements. This option avoids the hassle of re-booking individual sessions. Active File engagements ensure that, as new developments arise, we can develop responses against the backdrop of your established diagnostic map.

Key Benefits

Pricing and Add-0ns

Memes

Fine Print

After you complete the contact form on the home page, you'll receive a prospectus focused on a problem and the services I provide to people failed by standard protocols. In the prospectus and across my advisory practice, my goal is to expose the "naked emperors" and "sacred cows" that obstruct the path to superior responses.Reading the prospectus may cause difficult thoughts and emotions in minds still committed — even subtly — to the belief in the emperor’s new clothes. Please know that my job is not to validate this belief but to destroy it.Consider this your informed-consent notice: what follows past this point is not encouragement. It is pre-priced demolition, followed by architecture, engineering and construction.

This page summarizes and defers to the Master Service Agreement. Where the two differ, the MSA prevails. Always ask before assuming.

No Longer in Denial

When standard protocols failed, you used to react like everyone else. After the latest “transformation” at your company, everyone expressed amazement at the emperor’s new clothes. The safe move was to join the courtiers and to ostracize anyone who dared to state the obvious.Perhaps that was you years or decades ago. Or perhaps that was still you last week. But something changed. You no longer see the point of accepting consensus illusions as a sensible strategy. You realize that, when you follow outdated playbooks, you don't mitigate risk; you compound it. When pre-approved corporate rituals fail, continuing to perform them isn't discipline; it's denial.Breaking from the crowd doesn't bring relief. It brings an acute, disorienting isolation. You are suddenly left holding the full weight of a reality your peers refuse to acknowledge, with no institutional cover and no shared script to lean on.In this position, you don’t turn to McKinsey or Madison Avenue. You turn to a Special Purpose Advisor.

Drowning in Data

The data keeps coming – through your digital media, endless meetings, required reports, unsolicited sales pitches. The ceaseless stream doesn’t honor the merely human distinction between night and day, work and leisure, my time zone and yours.You can’t just unplug and refuse to play. Most of what you need to earn your next paycheck or to reach the next milestone is in the datastream. If you unplug, you lose.You’ve been plugged into this game for years or decades. Driven by economic necessity, you do what every drowning person does: use your strength and energy to keep your head above water.However, the flood of data doesn't bring clarity. It brings paralysis and cognitive fatigue. Often, it brings a kind of nausea at the sights and sounds of ritualized consensus maintenance. But you keep going because you know that somewhere in the static is the signal you seek.In this position, you don’t turn to McKinsey or Madison Avenue. You turn to a Special Purpose Advisor.

At a Crossroads

Think of life and work as a walk through a garden of forking paths. The problem is that you can’t always trust the signs. You read the proposals and prospectuses promising you a pot of gold if you turn right or left, but you know from experience that they may lead you to ruin instead.Most of the time, you trust your orienting faculty – the combination of analysis and intuition that typically serves you well. But there are those moments when a quiet voice in your mind says: "I should talk to someone about this."The trouble is that most people you could talk to have a stake in which path you choose. Or worse, they may rely on the same misleading signposts that got you lost in the first place.In this position, you don’t turn to McKinsey or Madison Avenue. You turn to a Special Purpose Advisor.

Ross Chisholm, Garden of Forking Paths (New York, September 8 – October 22, 2011)

Lonely at the Top

Power is a profoundly isolating condition. From the outside, your position looks enviable, but from where you sit, you see the Sword of Damocles hanging precariously over your head, a razor-sharp reminder about the reality of life and work under the golden crown.The Sword explains why it's lonely at the top. It's lonely because it's dangerous, and you have no one to talk to about the dangers. The people around you are part of the danger. Your courtiers and advisors tell you what you want to hear. Rivals watch for your next misstep. Board members are scheming for your removal.Knowing this, you don't literally retreat into silence. You play the game. You treat your daily interactions as a masquerade. You don't communicate human-to-human. You communicate mask-to-mask.In this position, you don’t turn to McKinsey or Madison Avenue. You turn to a Special Purpose Advisor.

Molested by Blind Gropers

Imagine yourself as the elephant in the ancient allegory with blind men groping your body parts. They interpret your trunk as a snake, your tail as a rope, your leg as a tree, and your tusks as spears. Because they can’t see you, they can’t know you, and they can’t help but reduce you to something they know. They can’t help but misdiagnose you, because they are ignorant of their ignorance.

Now imagine these Blind Gropers (BGs) as stand-ins for all the diagnosticians whose advice you seek out and whose judgments affect your view of everything that causes avoidable suffering in your life. They may include:

This is obviously just a sketch, not a formal taxonomy. In fact, I argue that, in this context, formal taxonomies are not only impossible but also undesirable, even counter-productive. They are part of the problem. The point here is that, when you are molested by BGs, you don't need another consultant or expert afflicted with Second Order Ignorance (SOI).In this position, you don’t turn to McKinsey or Madison Avenue. You turn to a Special Purpose Advisor.

Moving from Chaos to Clarity

To move from chaos to clarity, you do not turn to McKinsey or Madison Avenue because those environments are willfully ignorant of the distinction between what Spinoza called adequate and inadequate ideas. In the corporate world, inadequate ideas often take the form of false precision. Consider:

This is how modern corporations weave the emperor's new clothes. Nobody talks about this reality on status syncs and alignment calls, but as a post-denialist thinker, you know that this is not the path to clarity.That's why you don't call McKinsey. You move from chaos to clarity via negativa, through subtraction, not addition. That's why, instead of ordering another multi-million dollar deck, you speak with your Special Purpose Advisor.