Strategy isn’t about being better — it’s about being clear.
“The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.”
WHY IT MATTERS
Clarity sounds simple. In practice, it isn’t.
Most companies don’t fail from lack of effort — they fail from lack of focus.
As they grow, more people touch the brand, each with the ability to speak, post, or decide on its behalf. Without strategy, those efforts are unaligned — guided by individual instinct, not shared direction.
Activity replaces progress.
Marketing becomes a series of disconnected moves — disjointed, inefficient, and often competing for the same limited resources.
Budgets get stretched thinner, results become harder to measure, and impact erodes.
Leaders don’t look for partners to admire — they look for ones who make them stronger. Opera exists to help them do exactly that: to focus their teams, align their investments, and move with confidence.
A focused organization turns effort into progress and spend into growth.
WHAT WE DO
Opera helps leadership teams find the clarity they never had the time to define —
about what they do best, who they serve, and how their difference works in the world.
Then we turn that clarity into action: go-to-market plans, strategy models, and systems that align the team.
We don’t trade in theory.
We work with teams to make strategy live in decisions, behaviors, and results.
You gain a partner who turns vision into movement — not another deck of slides.
HOW WE WORK
Opera was founded by a practitioner, not a theorist.
After decades leading commercial, brand, and general-management teams, I’ve seen how strategy breaks down — not from lack of ambition, but from lack of alignment.
We make clarity operational through four interlocking lenses:
New Value — The reason you exist.
Defining Innovation — Proof you matter, built in response to an unmet need.
Consumer Story — Making empathy visible in how the brand shows up.
Structure for Scale — The alignment of tools, roles, and decisions that allow clarity to survive complexity.
When these four align, strategy becomes a living discipline —
You gain a repeatable, scalable way to turn strategy into performance.
WHY I DO IT
Because I’ve seen what happens when clarity disappears.
Because I’ve seen what happens when clarity disappears.
Across sixty markets and six continents, teams lose energy, brands lose distinction — not because ambition faded, but because coherence did.
I founded Opera to make clarity a working discipline, not a presentation. And because the best relationships aren’t built on admiration — they’re built on shared results.
A collaboration that helps you see sharper, act faster, and grow stronger.
TESTIMONIALS
“As a global brand leader, Carmen leverages his unique blend of creative and leadership talents to develop world-class marketing strategies and campaigns.”
“[Carmen] possesses the rare ability to build a collaborative ecosystem where everyone feels empowered to contribute and ownership is shared.”
“Carmen combines people skills with business skills in a way that makes you want to go the extra mile with a smile on your face. He is very result-driven without compromising the human aspects. ”
CONTACT
Founded by Carmen d’Ascendis,
Opera Brand Advisory was founded by a global brand leader with more than twenty-five years of experience building and managing some of the world’s most recognized spirits brands.
Across four continents and sixty markets, Carmen d’Ascendis has led sales, marketing, and general-management teams for Brown-Forman Corporation, where he spent over two decades working on Jack Daniel’s, Finlandia Vodka, and Chambord Liqueur.
His career has been defined by one through-line: turning strategy into practice.
From boardrooms in Tokyo to distilleries in Tennessee, he’s seen how clarity either fuels performance or gets lost in translation.
Opera is built on that experience — on the belief that strategy only matters when it shapes behavior, aligns teams, and delivers what leaders actually need: confidence, traction, and measurable progress.
Decades of global experience, distilled into practical clarity that moves business forward.