From Wall Street Journal to Strategic Advisor: How Nish Amarnath Built Lanecraft Lab on the Power of Story Architecture
Most consultants follow a predictable path: MBA, big firm, corner office. Nish Amarnath's journey looks nothing like that. She's written for for the Wall Street Journal and Reuters, covering private markets, AI, and energy finance. Her work as a bestselling novelist was recognized by the U.S. State Department. She has also been a management consultant at KPMG, public diplomacy head for the UK Government, a consultant for the World Bank, and managing editor at a European publishing group. She holds degrees from the London School of Economics (as a Margot Naylor Scholar) and Columbia University (as a James W. Robins Reporting Fellow), and she's worked across three continents.
For years, her career looked like a patchwork of unrelated experiences. Today, she sees it differently: each role trained her to solve the same problem from different angles—how to translate complexity into clarity and action. That realization became the foundation for Lanecraft Lab, a strategic advisory firm that operates at the intersection of storytelling, strategy, and systems thinking.
Nish works with senior leaders and organizations navigating complex, high-stakes environments, helping them build what she calls "story architecture"—not just messaging for media campaigns, but narrative frameworks that drive decisions at multiple stakeholder levels, from boards and investors to customers and policymakers. Her clients span industries from facilities management to Fortune 500 companies, and her approach combines the investigative rigor of financial journalism, the structural thinking of consulting, and the emotional resonance of fiction writing.
As a member of International Thriller Writers and author of three books including the bestselling novel "Victims For Sale," Nish brings a rare combination of creative synthesis and analytical precision to her work. She's covered everything from climate change and artificial intelligence to workers' rights and public policy for outlets including Industry Dive, S&P Global, and TheStreet.com.
In this conversation, Nish shares how she distilled decades of diverse experience into a clear business model, why she had to unlearn the instinct to undervalue intellectual labor, and her advice for women building credibility in fields dominated by large consulting firms and traditional career paths.
Question 1: You've had an impressive journalism career at the Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Dow Jones, S&P Global, and Industry Dive, covering everything from climate change to artificial intelligence. You also wrote three books, including the bestselling novel "Victims For Sale" which was nominated for the Mumbai Film Festival Award and recognized by the U.S. State Department. What made you transition from journalism and authorship to founding Lanecraft Lab as a strategic advisory firm, and how does your background as both a journalist and novelist inform the way you help clients refine their narratives and positioning?
Nish: I see myself as a storyteller. I’ve always believed there’s a story in people, patterns, numbers, and trends. I founded Lanecraft Lab as a strategic advisory firm to guide organizations and senior leaders on how the right narrative can drive policy, investment, customer capture, and human behavior, beyond the media. My work sits at the intersection of storytelling, strategy, and systems thinking, focused on distilling complex information and data into compelling narratives that drive decisions at multiple stakeholder levels, including boards and investors. For example, helping building managers secure capital for large-scale HVAC and retrofit upgrades by framing the ROI and risk language in a way that resonates with executives.
My background as a journalist for outlets like WSJ and Reuters grounded me in asking incisive questions and uncovering hidden structures. My work in fiction taught me to see emotional resonance and the power of language as tools that shift perception. My early management consulting roots at KPMG and my leadership of high-stakes global mandates for Fortune 500 companies and government bodies keep me focused on client realities—identifying pain points shaped by resource constraints, regulation, geopolitical uncertainty, and market dynamics.
Together, these strands form the backbone of how I help clients refine their positioning, building not just a message targeting Tier-1 and trade media, but a story architecture that endures beyond trends and campaigns.
Question 2: You've worked in incredibly diverse roles—from public diplomacy head for the UK Government to consultant for the World Bank, from managing editor at a European publishing group to reporter covering distressed debt and bankruptcies. How did you take all these varied experiences and distill them into a clear business model for Lanecraft Lab? What was the hardest part about positioning yourself as a strategic advisor after being known primarily as a journalist and author?
Nish: For a long time, my career looked like a patchwork of unrelated experiences—consulting, journalism, PR, public diplomacy, and authorship. Today, I realize that each role trained me to solve the same problem from different angles—how to translate complexity into clarity and action.
At KPMG, I learned the rigor of systems—how processes, incentives, and risk structures drive outcomes. As the leader of a public diplomacy mandate for the UK Government, I saw how narrative alignment shapes international trust and investment. At outlets like The Wall Street Journal, and Reuters, I honed my expertise in asking questions no one else was asking and distilling chaos into a story that target audiences could understand. At an editorial leader at news organizations like Institutional Investor and Industry Dive, I guided reporters and contributors to do the same.
Lanecraft Lab is a driven by a lean-ops model grounded in the notion of strategy and storytelling as two sides of the same current. I use investigative depth and industry knowledge from financial journalism, structural thinking from consulting, functional skills from B2B communications, and creative synthesis from fiction to help clients grow and expand their reach with a consistent and cohesive story that resonates with target stakeholder groups.
The hardest part of the transition involved unlearning old patterns, stepping out from behind the byline, and trusting my experience as a framework, not just a résumé. But once I embraced that, clients began to see the same thing I did—that clarity is gold, and stories move systems.
Question 3: Lanecraft Lab helps leaders navigate "complex, high-stakes environments through precision roadmaps." You hold degrees from both the London School of Economics (as a Margot Naylor Scholar) and Columbia University (as a James W. Robins Reporting Fellow), and you've worked across three continents. As a woman building a strategic advisory firm, what advice would you give to other female founders about leveraging a non-traditional career path, pricing high-level consulting services, and building credibility in a field that's often dominated by large consulting firms?
Nish: Strategy consulting is still male-dominated. More broadly speaking, women entrepreneurs are behind their male counterparts in many capital-raising metrics, although their companies generate more revenue per dollar raised, according to a report from Female Founders Fund. Building Lanecraft Lab as a woman founder has meant redefining what credibility looks like. I come from a non-linear background—journalism, consulting, public diplomacy—and I’ve learned that strength lies in synthesis, not conformity. Every unconventional skill or detour can become an asset if you know how to integrate it into a coherent value story.
For women who’ve followed non-traditional paths, my biggest advice is this—operate from a place of alignment within yourself and never apologize for who you are. Be specific about the pain points you are addressing, how you will solve those problems, why your background makes you uniquely positioned to do so, and what measurable outcomes you’ve delivered. The consulting world often defaults to frameworks and jargon, but clients invest in resonance. They want a partner they can trust. They want someone who can see the blind spots they’ve missed.
On pricing, I had to unlearn the instinct to undervalue intellectual labor. I moved from charging for time to aligning fees with scope and impact rather than hours. That shift changed everything, both financially and psychologically.
Finally, credibility is cumulative. It’s built through consistent delivery and composure in high-stakes settings. Every meeting, presentation, and follow-up email contributes to the architecture of trust.
Lanecraft Lab exists to show that precision, empathy, and strategy can coexist—that a woman-founded firm can operate with the rigor of sophisticated consulting while maintaining the humanity and intuition that make change sustainable.
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