About Orchard Group
Strong Roots Run Deep
Orchard Group was planted with a simple belief: that organizations deserve consulting that is honest, rigorous, and genuinely invested in their success. Ten years on, that belief shapes everything we do — from the way we run our own firm to the way we show up for every client, every engagement, every day.
We are a boutique management consulting firm based in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, working with clients across Canada and throughout Europe. We keep our practice intentionally small, not because we lack ambition, but because we care too much about quality to grow faster than our standards allow.
From High-Stakes Fields to Your Organization
Our roots go deep into some of the most demanding operational environments in the world. Orchard’s founding partners built their expertise working alongside organizations in sectors where getting it wrong is simply not an option; industries shaped by dense regulatory frameworks, international standards, and a culture of rigorous, documented performance accountability.
In those environments you don’t get to approximate. You document your decisions. You follow your processes. You test your assumptions. And when something doesn’t go as planned, you learn from it systematically, completely, and transparently.
That discipline runs through the very roots of our firm. And it travels with us into every engagement, regardless of the sector.
Over the years, we developed a proprietary quality management system forged in those high-consequence environments. It keeps us honest, keeps our work traceable, and keeps our clients protected. When you work with Orchard, you benefit from the same principled approach that keeps safety-critical operations running safely, applied to your organization, your challenges, your goals.
What We Do
The short version: we help organizations work better.
The longer version: we understand that a business is at it’s core a complex system of systems, and so we work across the disciplines that determine how well an organization actually functions. That includes its governance structures, its information and knowledge management, its processes and systems, the human performance of the people who run those systems, and its capacity for continuous improvement. To us these aren’t separate offerings or something to “upsell”. An organization that manages information poorly will govern badly. One without a continuous improvement culture will slowly fossilize. We look at the full picture.
- Management Systems and Governance. Building the structures, policies, and accountability frameworks that let organizations operate with clarity and confidence.
- Continuous Improvement. Giving your organization a structured way to surface problems, identify root causes, and act on what’s actually driving performance, not just what’s most visible.
- Information Management. Bringing order, accessibility, and integrity to the information your organization depends on to operate.
- Human Performance. Understanding how your people interact with systems and processes, and designing for reliability rather than hoping for it.
- Process Optimization. Clearing out the workarounds, the inconsistencies, and the quiet friction that cost your organization more than you realize.
Bringing Those Lessons to AI
Artificial intelligence is, in many ways, the newest high-consequence environment most organizations will ever enter. The stakes — to your people, your reputation, your stakeholders, and sometimes the broader public — are real and fast-moving. And unlike the sectors where we first sharpened our skills, the regulatory frameworks and oversight mechanisms for AI are still being written.
We have been here before. Not with this specific technology, but with this specific challenge: how do you adopt something powerful, novel, and not fully understood, while maintaining the safety, transparency, and accountability that your stakeholders demand?
The answer, in our experience, is the same one it has always been: good governance, honest documentation, rigorous process, and a culture that treats transparency as a given rather than a compliance burden.
We help organizations bring AI into their operations safely and ethically. That means the oversight mechanisms, policy frameworks, and staff capability to understand what your AI is doing, why it’s doing it, and whether it should be. We don’t sell AI enthusiasm. We help you cultivate it responsibly — so that the technology works for your organization, and not the other way around.
Our Commitment to You
We made a decision early in Orchard’s life we’ve never regretted: every engagement is led by a partner. Not handed off to a junior team once the proposal is signed. Not managed from a distance once things get comfortable. Every Orchard engagement benefits from the experience, accountability, and direct investment in your success our leadership team offers.
This isn’t how the big consulting firms operate, but we think it should be.
Sara Stashick, Dave Drinnan and Will Gill each bring decades of hands-on experience in their respective domains. One of them will be at the table with you from the first conversation to the final deliverable. You’ll always know who is responsible for the quality of your engagement — because they’ll be in the room.
We work with clients across Canada and Europe, and we’re comfortable spanning time zones when the work calls for it.
How We Conduct Ourselves
The values that shaped our work in high-consequence sectors are the same ones that shape how we run our firm: honestly, carefully, and with genuine regard for the people and organizations we serve.
We’re transparent about what we know and what we don’t. We’re candid when we’re not the right fit for a project. We don’t take on work we believe would cause harm, and we hold ourselves to the same standards of ethical conduct that we help our clients build into their own operations.
Good consulting — like a well-tended orchard — takes time, care, and a long view. We’re not here for the quick harvest. We’re here to help you grow something that lasts.