05 · About
We are researchers first, consultants second.
Nexorra is a small research-led consulting practice doing one thing carefully. We tell AEC firms in the central United States what their hiring market actually looks like — what their competitors are paying, who is leaving them, what candidates in their disciplines actually value right now, and which of their own senior people are at risk of being courted away in private — and we use that read to help them correct a comp model, close the gap between what they're offering and what their candidates actually value, or hold onto the people they cannot afford to lose.
The category we are pulling away from is full of firms that describe themselves the same way. The difference is what you can verify. Our memo carries a date and our name. Our deliverables carry a written scope before they start. If at any point what we publish stops making sense, you can stop reading — and you will not get an exit modal asking why.
We work with a small number of clients on purpose. The research we deliver to one of them should not be the same research we are delivering to their direct competitor. If you would like to start with a diagnostic, the form is one page.
— Cody Ballah
Operating principles
The list we are willing to be held to.
Most firms hide their operating principles behind sales copy. Publishing them means a buyer can hold us to them — and we think that is the point.
- I
Provider of facts, not guesses.
We separate fact from opinion in everything we publish. We let the market argue the opinion. We do not let it argue the facts.
- II
Diagnose before we prescribe.
Every engagement starts with what the market actually looks like — what your competitors are paying, who is leaving them, what candidates value right now — before any candidate name is named, and before we ask you whether you want to make a hire at all.
- III
Research is the function. Search is downstream.
We are a research-led practice. Search is the tool we reach for when a diagnostic surfaces a specific seat — and only then. The research function is what the firm is built on.
- IV
What we publish, you can hold us to.
We write the scope before the work starts. The bar a deliverable has to clear is on the page before any work is done. If it doesn't clear that bar, you can stop and we redo it.
The team
Three people, working close to the work.
We are intentionally small. Every client engagement is staffed by the people whose names appear here — not by an unnamed associate inside a vertical we have never met.
Cody Ballah
Practitioner of the firm's research function. Author of the memo. Signs every diagnostic that leaves the desk.
Verify on LinkedInKandi Unfried
Owns the candidate-side intake — what's prompting the conversation, what's actually being valued, what's on the table that the comp model doesn't see.
Verify on LinkedInRyan Hinson-Clark
Owns the search execution when a diagnostic surfaces a specific seat. Every candidate presented carries a market-position read he signs.
Verify on LinkedInHow we talk about our work
We have a written list of category-defining words that we never use to describe what this firm does — the same dozen or so worn-out terms every consulting site reaches for first. The list lives in our style guide, not in our copy.
We do not narrate excitement at a buyer. We do not stage enthusiasm in the first sentence of an email. The reasoning is on the page; the buyer decides whether to be enthusiastic about it. If a deliverable from us reads like every other consulting deck, something has gone wrong upstream — tell us, and we will redo it.