Our Story
A decade spent finding the real problem.
Ford kept watching the same thing break. Not the work. The relationships around the work. The trust that should have made everything easier, but didn't exist when it was needed most.
Ford Knowlton
Founder, Work With Meaning
2014
I started building an AI coaching platform. The idea was to use personality assessment data to help people understand how they work together. We built a team, grew it, and in 2018 I left.
After the sale
I spent some time asking myself what I actually wanted the next 25 years to be about. The real thing underneath all of it: how trust actually forms between people at work, and why it's so hard to build intentionally.
2022
I started building a relationship agent. The AI wasn't ready. I hit walls and had to wait.
2024
Two things happened at the same time. The technology finally caught up. And through Vistage, I discovered fractional leaders, people who build their entire career and livelihood on trust. They don't have a logo behind them. They can't coast on a brand. Every engagement they get is because someone trusted them enough to call.
That's when everything clicked.
The Problem That Started It All
I watched a brilliant fractional CFO spend hours every week on LinkedIn trying to get the attention of companies that needed exactly what she offered. She was exceptional. She just wasn't visible to the right people.
And on the other side, I watched business owners hire the wrong person because they didn't know who to trust. Not because good people didn't exist. Because there was no infrastructure connecting them.
That's a solvable problem. So we're solving it.
The Conviction
“Fractional leadership is what it looks like when you strip away the institution and just leave the trust. These people operate the way I believe the best work happens, where relationships are the infrastructure, not the afterthought.”
I think that's the future of work. Not for a niche. For everyone.
What We're Building
Technology to help us be more human. Not less.
Work With Meaning is the company I'm building to make this possible at scale, for the leaders who live this way, and for the businesses ready to work with them.
AI should help you show up better in your relationships, not remove you from them. Our platform handles the administrative weight of staying connected so the humans in the equation can focus on the work that actually requires them.
The Standard
Every recommendation and introduction is reviewed by a person before it reaches you. The machine drafts, but the human approves.
That's not just a feature. It's our standard for earned trust.
The Community
We don't just say we value trust. Our network proves it.
Cincy Voices is where the fractional leaders in our network speak publicly about trust, technology, and what meaningful work actually looks like. In their own words. Unscripted.
Before you decide if Work With Meaning is the right fit, you can hear directly from the people who are already here. That transparency is intentional.
Explore Cincy Voices →“The question I get asked most is how I find clients. The honest answer is I don't. They find me, because I've spent years making sure the right people know what I stand for.”
Fractional CMO, WWM Network
“Trust isn't a nice-to-have in this work. It's the whole thing. Without it, nothing else matters.”
Fractional CFO, WWM Network