A strategic positioning practice for organizations setting the next standard, not chasing the current one.
We figure out where you are trying to go, then build the bridge to get you there.
A practice, not an agency.
Dunfey Group is a strategic positioning practice based in Vermont, working nationally and internationally. The work is business strategy delivered through the medium of communications. We help organizations figure out where they are going, who they need to be when they get there, and how to start communicating from that position now.
Most communications work today is built for extraction. Win the pitch. Beat the competition. Fill the pipeline before someone else does. That model burns out clients and produces work nobody is proud of.
Upcycling is creating the new standard. The bar is always rising because the world is always changing, and last year’s playbook rarely survives this year’s conditions. That is the engine of the practice. We do not put clients where their competitors are. We position them where their competitors have not yet thought to go.
Four principles shape every engagement.
Dunfey Group is the work of one senior strategist, designed to operate at the scale serious organizations need.
Senior partner, not execution shop.
You work directly with Shannon. No account managers, no junior staff, no handoffs. The strategy and the writing come from the same person who sat in the Communications Director chair during a $1.25 billion federal recovery program and has run international maritime communications across Sweden, the UK, Spain, and Singapore.
Position forward, not sideways.
The competitive landscape moves quickly. Most communications work tries to catch up to where competitors already are. We do the opposite. We position clients where their industry is going, so when others arrive, the client is already the name associated with the move.
Upcycle, do not copy.
Outdated industry formats get reinvented into the ones competitors will be copying in three years. Same categories, fundamentally different result. Upcycling is how the new standard gets created. The Ski 603 Winter Kickoff is one example. There are others.
Build the system, then hand it off.
Engagements are designed so clients are stronger at communicating when we finish than when we started. The frameworks, the messaging architecture, the editorial systems, the playbooks. They are built for the client to run themselves. We do not build dependency. We build capability.
How an engagement actually unfolds.
Listen to the business. The whole business.
Every engagement begins with a strategic diagnostic that examines the organization from the inside out. Operations, suppliers, internal teams, customer base, government and regulatory relationships, competitive position, and where leadership is trying to go. Internal communications are usually as important as external ones, sometimes more so. Suppliers, vendors, and contracted partners often need to be re-educated about how to work with the business as it grows. None of this gets fixed by writing a better press release.
Sometimes the diagnostic alone gives leadership the clarity they were missing. The act of being asked the right questions by a senior outsider who knows the industry forces a leadership team to articulate things they had not put into words yet. That clarification is part of the value. The win-win starts in the first conversation.
Whatever the bridge needs to be.
From the diagnostic, we build the bridge to where the organization wants to go. Some engagements are heavy on positioning and brand strategy. Others are heavy on internal alignment, supplier communications, or government and stakeholder relations. Most combine several. The deliverables are tools, not the product. The product is directional momentum.
Three engagement formats, depending on where you are.
Pricing is set per engagement and reflects the seriousness of the work, not an hourly rate.
Strategic Diagnostic
A short-form engagement, four to six weeks. We examine the business, name what is missing, and recommend the path forward. Some clients stop here with a clear plan they execute themselves. Many continue into a full engagement.
Best for: organizations that know something is off but cannot name it, or leaders who want senior eyes on a specific problem before committing to a longer scope.
Strategic Engagement
Six to twelve months. We position the organization, invent the formats that fit, build the systems, and hand them off. This is the core of the practice and where the meaningful work happens.
Best for: organizations ready to make decisions, with leadership willing to act on what the work surfaces and a budget that reflects the seriousness of the project.
Advisory Retainer
Ongoing strategic input for clients who completed a full engagement. Light touch, quarterly check-ins, on-call thinking when stakes get high.
Best for: organizations that want senior judgment available without a full active engagement.
What we do not do
Website builds. Graphic design. Logo work. Video production. Paid advertising. Day-to-day social media management. We are a strategy practice, not a one-stop agency. When you need execution work, we will refer you to people who do it well.
Selected engagements and credentials.
A short look at the work behind the practice. Spoken in the first person, because Shannon did the work.
Ski New Hampshire — Marketing & Communications Manager
I built the first-ever Ski 603 Winter Kickoff at McIntyre Ski Area in fall 2018. The traditional ski media reception was a mixer with appetizers held in Boston before the ski expo. I rebuilt it as the official statewide season kickoff event, hosted in New Hampshire, with the Director of Travel and Tourism unveiling the season’s marketing campaign live, the head of the Department of Business and Economic Affairs presenting visitor and spending forecasts, and Manchester’s mayor welcoming a crowd of more than 200. Fourteen ski areas attended. Each one was paired with a New Hampshire brewery, distillery, or meadery for the evening. The format is now in its eighth year and remains the kickoff event for the New Hampshire ski industry.
I also built the Boston Ski Show speed-dating media event, a parallel format that paired ski area marketing leads with regional press in a speed-dating bowling night structure. And I rebuilt the Ski NH media kits from a contact list into a full editorial resource: pitches, story angles, history, fun facts, ready-to-use ideas. I do not give press contacts and hope. I give them the story.
I also launched the Ski NH Next Gen award, which is still running.
Bylined at the time as Shannon Dunfey-Ball.
Vermont Department of Housing and Community Development — Communications Director
I led public communications for a $1.25 billion federal ARPA recovery program at Vermont DHCD, the department that oversees Housing, Community Planning & Revitalization, the Division for Historic Preservation, the State Archaeologist’s office, and the Vermont State Historic Sites. The work spanned EV charger infrastructure, multi-unit housing programs, downtown and village designation, historic preservation, and community development block grants. Far beyond housing alone.
I was the first communications director DHCD ever had. The department had run for decades without a dedicated strategic communications function. I did not step into a position. I built one. Designing a communications operation from scratch for a department that touches that many pieces of the state economy, while a recovery program of that scale is in motion, is its own kind of strategic invention.
The work was as much about educating Vermonters and re-educating internal stakeholders about how complex federal programs actually function as it was about external messaging. Internal alignment across agencies, programs, and contracted partners was the work that made the external messaging possible.
ADD Maritime AB — Vice President
Six years based in Gothenburg, Sweden, working with international shipping clients including Maersk. Cross-cultural strategic communications across Sweden, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Singapore. The maritime sector taught me how international supply chains actually work, which is rare to find in a communications strategist working in the United States today.
University of Vermont — SOAR Certificate Instructor
I am an instructor in the University of Vermont’s Snowsports & Outdoor Adventure Recreation (SOAR) Certificate, a 15-week professional program that prepares working professionals, career-changers, and current resort employees for leadership roles in ski resort management, outdoor recreation marketing, adventure tourism, and four-season operations. The work involves designing and delivering curriculum on outdoor recreation marketing, business strategy, and operations.
Building the workforce pipeline for an entire economy is its own kind of strategic work. Teaching others to think strategically about the industries I work in keeps the practice accountable to the standards it claims.
The principal.
Shannon Dunfey Konvicka is the principal of Dunfey Group. Fifteen-plus years in strategic communications across federal government, international maritime, and the ski industry.
Former Communications Director at the Vermont Department of Housing and Community Development, leading public communications for a $1.25 billion federal recovery program. Former Vice President at ADD Maritime AB in Gothenburg, Sweden. Former Marketing and Communications Manager at Ski New Hampshire. Instructor at the University of Vermont, designing and delivering curriculum for the SOAR Certificate program that builds the leadership pipeline for the outdoor recreation economy. Contributing writer for Ski Area Management magazine and the Valley Reporter.
Dunfey Group is the result of fifteen years of senior work across the sectors that matter most to her. She built it to bring that experience directly to the organizations doing the most interesting work in those industries today.
The Dunfey name has meant something in American hospitality for generations. Her grandfather Bob Dunfey co-founded what became the Omni Hotels group. That tradition of operating with integrity in complex, relationship-driven industries shapes how the practice works.
Tell us about your project.
Shannon will respond within two business days.