Grace Clarke

Grace Clarke is a marketing strategist and growth consultant whose methodologies have influenced some of the most recognized brands in technology, media, and retail. Today, Grace's consulting work spans major technology, media, and consumer companies including Google, NPR, Target, Shopify, and Jones Road Beauty. She is also the founder of the Gen Z Board of Directors, the largest qualitative insights project focused on Gen Z consumers. Her unique combination of editorial expertise, brand building, and consumer insights has shaped her distinct approach to marketing strategy and growth.

Building Flywheels, Not Funnels

Grace's approach rejects conventional marketing playbooks in favor of building sustainable growth engines. Rather than focusing on short-term customer acquisition, she helps DTC brands create self-reinforcing loops that drive compounding growth and turn customers into advocates. This anti-playbook approach emerges from years of observing how the most successful brands actually grow.

Her work centers on analyzing market movements and translating them into actionable strategies for each brand's unique context. By examining what's working across different companies and industries, she develops customized strategies that build on themselves over time, generating increasingly stronger returns as customer advocacy fuels organic growth.

The Strategic Access Problem

"Working with brands across every stage and scale, I noticed a consistent challenge: companies don't just need periodic strategy sessions - they need ongoing access to current market intelligence. The pace of change demands it."

Trends move fast and don't align with scheduled consulting sessions. This timing mismatch often leads to missed opportunities or delayed responses to market changes. This observation sparked a bigger question: How can up-to-date marketing intelligence be made more accessible and affordable without sacrificing quality?

A Journey to Scale

Grace began exploring solutions to this challenge by building her own AI clone. Recognizing the market need for continuous strategic guidance, she saw AI as a way to scale her methodology beyond the constraints of traditional consulting. Her early experiments with AI development confirmed the potential, but also revealed the complexity of capturing and deploying strategic thinking at scale.

The collaboration with Amigo emerged from this initial exploration. Together, we developed Grace AI, allowing Grace to “clone her mind” for her clients. This digital consultant is updated weekly with Grace’s latest real-world learnings and observations, providing:

• Access to unique approaches to building sustainable growth engines
• Customized brainstorming sessions that draw from Grace's experience with hundreds of brands
• Continuous access to evolving strategic insights from current client work and market observations
• Real-time analysis of market trends and their implications from Grace’s point of view

"The reality is, I can only be in so many rooms. Grace AI also lets me share my strategic thinking and market intelligence with every brand that needs it, not just the few I can work with directly. It removes the traditional barriers of time and cost that kept many brands from accessing this level of strategic support."

Future Vision

For Grace, this shift to AI-enabled consulting marks just the beginning. By analyzing patterns in consultation topics and strategic needs, her Amigo can evolve to identify when brands would benefit most from direct collaboration with Grace herself. This creates a more intelligent bridge between AI-enabled support and human strategic partnership.

The model could also expand into collaborative learning, where insights generated from one brand's success contribute to a broader understanding of market dynamics—while maintaining confidentiality. This network effect would create an ever-more sophisticated understanding of what drives sustainable growth, particularly valuable for emerging categories and markets.

Visit Grace Clarke’s website to learn more about her unique approach to growing brands and the transformative work she has done for her clients.