The Firm
Belgrave brings together three people with distinct areas of expertise and a shared understanding of what it means to build and run a business. Between us are decades of experience with companies of different sizes, across industries, and at very different points in their development. We have worked within businesses and advised them from the outside, giving us perspective on both the decisions that shape them and the realities of carrying those decisions forward.
Each of us brings an independent perspective to the work. We are equally comfortable advising within our own areas of expertise, and many engagements call for exactly that. Other questions benefit from more than one point of view.
We know how to work together. We challenge one another's assumptions, notice different things, and often approach the same question from entirely different directions. What emerges is not three separate opinions, but a more considered understanding of the decision itself and what it may mean for the business as a whole.
The People Behind the Counsel
Fernando Flores-New
Fernando Flores-New has spent his career helping businesses navigate the decisions that shape their direction, performance, and value. A senior executive and adviser with extensive experience in business and finance, both domestically and internationally, he has served in CFO, general management, consulting, and board leadership roles. His work spans business and financial strategy, corporate development, mergers and acquisitions, restructuring, turnarounds, governance, and business growth.
Throughout his career, Fernando has often been brought into businesses at consequential moments. At McKesson Specialty Health, he led the turnaround of a $100 million oncology research business, returning it to profitability within two years. In another executive role, he developed an acute hospital business into a separate business line that doubled the company's size within three years. Earlier in his career, he managed complex business and dealer transitions across Europe, Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa while serving as a director of 25 international subsidiaries and independent dealerships. His consulting work has included acquisitions and divestitures, market entry, integrations, financial and operational strategy, and interim executive leadership.
Fernando holds an MBA from the University of Bath and a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Business Administration from Houston Christian University. His executive education includes Mergers and Acquisitions at the University of Virginia's Darden Graduate School of Business, the Novartis Executive Management Program at Harvard Business School, and Innovation Management at the University of Bath.
Fernando has long maintained a commitment to education and mentorship. A natural teacher, he takes particular satisfaction in helping people develop their own judgment and capabilities. He established an endowment at the University of Bath in the early 2000s that funds the Flores-New Awards, recognizing achievement within its MBA programs. He has also been a guest speaker at the University of Bath and the University of Houston on international M&A and finance.
Fernando's commitment to stewardship extends beyond business and education. He currently serves as President of the Gerber Foundation, following more than two decades of involvement with the organization. His work there has included strategy and policy through its Executive Committee, as well as strategic investment and financial counsel through its Finance Committee.
Principal Consultant
Sydney Flores-New
Principal Consultant
Sydney Flores-New works at the intersection of business strategy and marketing, helping organizations understand where they stand, how they can differentiate themselves, and how the way they communicate and present themselves can support where they want to go. Her approach keeps marketing and creative decisions connected to the larger strategic objectives of the business.
Her experience spans both marketing strategy and creative execution, from positioning and brand development through advertising, media, and creative direction. Working across both sides gives Sydney an understanding of how a strategic idea translates into the many ways people ultimately experience a business. For nearly a decade, she has advised clients primarily across healthcare and luxury, working with businesses whose audiences, challenges, and measures of success differ considerably.
Her perspective is also informed by early corporate experience in Asia Pacific, where she worked for Fortune 200 company Arrow Electronics, with regional responsibilities spanning 14 countries, and supported the rollout of a global rebrand alongside Ogilvy. That experience, combined with her subsequent consulting work, shaped an approach to marketing that begins with the audience: understanding how people perceive a business, what influences their decisions, and how a strategy must translate across different markets and contexts.
Sydney began her studies at the University of the Arts London, where she earned a Foundation Diploma in Art & Design that developed the visual foundation for her design work and creative direction. She later earned her bachelor's degree in psychology and linguistics at the University of Sydney, with particular focus on social psychology and neuroscience, as well as systemic functional linguistics and discourse analysis. Together, these disciplines continue to inform the way she thinks about behavior, language, visual communication, and perception – and the relationship between what a business intends to communicate and what its audience ultimately understands.
Sydney has also maintained a personal connection to the art and design disciplines in which she began. She particularly enjoys working with emerging luxury designers on the practical challenges of developing a product – from materials, construction, and production to sourcing and design refinement. For Sydney, the work is an opportunity to return to her creative roots while helping emerging designers turn an idea into something that can succeed beyond the drawing board.
Kelly Flores-New
Image Consultant
Kelly Flores-New brings more than three decades of experience in fashion, luxury retail, executive and corporate image, styling, and professional presentation to Belgrave. Throughout her career, she has been interested in the relationship between personal image and perception: how appearance communicates authority, credibility, individuality, and an understanding of the environment in which a person operates.
Her perspective was shaped early in her career. In the early 1980s, Kelly opened Kelly M, a women's boutique on Post Oak in Houston that offered a more individual approach to dressing professional women and was subsequently featured in Glamour. That early interest in helping women navigate professional expectations without losing their own identity would become one thread in a career that expanded well beyond retail.
Kelly went on to advise executives and professionals and provide corporate image counsel and training for major organizations, including AT&T, Frito-Lay, Ford Motor Company, Visa International, Baker Botts, Comerica Bank, and NASA/Johnson Space Center. Her experience has also encompassed luxury retail, fashion and event production, media, and individual styling, giving her an understanding of image across both professional and personal contexts. Kelly Flores-New
At Belgrave, Kelly focuses on executive and professional image and the role presentation can play in how an individual—and, by extension, an organization—is perceived. She advises on professional presence, wardrobe, workplace presentation, and the visual signals that accompany a person's role. Her approach is neither prescriptive nor trend-driven; it begins with the individual and considers what is appropriate for the position, the environment, and the impression that person needs to make.
Kelly earned her bachelor's degree in Marketing and Economics from Michigan State University. Her continued professional development included extensive study and applied work in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), communication, and behavioral dynamics, which she incorporated into her work in corporate image, professional presence, and training.