History Services

Winthrop crafts authoritative and engaging histories of enduring value and impact.

At Winthrop, we capture the best of your past, your victories and achievements, but we also seek out stories of survival, perseverance, and triumph over adversity—stories that inspire and unite. We combine expert storytelling and authoritative insights with an appeal to institutional memory, fostering a sense of identity, community, and continuity. And we bring your story forward into the present day, helping you communicate the lasting purpose of your institution.

Whether you want to honor service and celebrate accomplishment, authenticate a brand, substantiate a message, or just set the record straight, we help you tell your story with the explanatory power and emotional appeal that only history, your history, can provide.

Publications. We craft authoritative histories and biographies tailored to virtually any audience or purpose, from distinguished books and articles published by the world’s leading academic and trade presses and business journals to lavishly illustrated books, booklets, and brochures.

Digital presentations. We design and produce e-books, interactive websites, tablet and smartphone apps, and other digital content that allow you to present your history with fresh meaning and purpose and engage audiences as active participants in narrative and interpretation.

Documentary film and video. Our award-winning documentaries and other visual presentations combine artful narrative and high production values to establish a personal connection with the audience, creating a powerful and engaging story.

Oral and recorded history. We use professional interviewing techniques and deep knowledge of business and institutional history to capture stories and anecdotes, dissenting opinions and roads not taken—together, a rich vein of insight from senior leaders into today’s challenges and opportunities.

Research. We locate, analyze, and interpret historical source material for use in areas such as litigation, regulatory compliance, economic forecasting, and public relations. We also serve as expert witnesses in areas of the law where historical knowledge is crucial, including anti-trust, product liability, environmental torts, and property rights.

The Family Project. We believe that families and individuals deserve high-quality historical services that can have the same, if not more, value as other professional services, such as investment strategies or legal advice.

Information & Archival Services

Winthrop plans and helps manage and staff archives for clients seeking to preserve, control and provide access to your assets and information.

Winthrop Group’s Information & Archival Services Division assists clients who

• want to establish and/or maintain archives and efficiently manage non-current records and archival assets (regardless of format or value)

• wish to collect, preserve, and utilize historically significant documentation for research, business, informational or evidential value, educational, communications, scholarly, personal, or family purposes
   
• need to codify functional requirements and technical specifications for digitization projects, select Digital Asset Management systems, and implement records management procedures and Information Governance policies.

• must move and expand the archive, undertake a data migration, prepare records retention schedules, or create and implement a company-wide disaster recovery and emergency preparedness plan.

Winthrop's Archival Services include:

Conceptualization

• Needs assessment
• Planning and budgeting
• Policy development
• Space planning

Fundamentals

• Records surveys
• Inventories and content appraisal
• Processing and cataloging archival records
• Collection development
• Metadata schemas, authority files, taxonomies and controlled vocabularies
• Program implementation
• Software evaluation
• Finding aids and databases
• Reference and access planning and service
• Preservation, conservation, conversion, emulation and migration
• Audio-visual and media digitization options
• Oral histories
• Data maintenance, Quality Control and Quality Assurance
• Data verification and validation
• Records retention schedules
• Archival supplies and logistical support

Program Enhancement and Support

• Program staffing, training and personnel searches
• Disaster recovery and emergency preparedness
• Online and interactive applications
• Special projects, exhibits, publications and audio-visual productions

Consulting

Winthrop helps you draw critical insights from your past experience, laying the foundation for distinctive strategies and capabilities.

Today’s business environment can seem unprecedented in the scale, scope, and pace of change. In fact, others have walked down similar paths before, and we can profit from their experience. As Mark Twain put it: “History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” And it is precisely in the rhyming that we begin to recognize the true nature of our problems and the questions we need to pose in order to progress.

At Winthrop, we offer a range of consulting services—from case studies, culture audits, and white papers to brand histories, family advisory services, and compact “master narratives”™—designed to help you draw critical insights from your unique experience and lay the foundation for distinctive strategies and solutions that competitors find hard to match. 

Strategy. We show you how past decisions and events, whether in your organization, your industry, or the wider economy, continue to shape the choices you make today, helping you to recognize the true nature of your problems and the questions you need to pose in order to progress.

Organizational culture. We help you articulate and reinforce core values, heal cultural rifts, drive change without losing the essence of who you are as an organization, and motivate people to overcome challenges by making them feel a part of something larger than themselves.

Brand heritage. We show you the real story of your brand, rooted in the language, imagery, and experience that combine to make it distinctive, enabling you to bring an authentic identity to the marketplace.

Post-merger integration. We help you leverage the experience of two predecessor firms to build new, shared values and develop the social cohesion and strong corporate culture that is the basis of real synergies and shareholder value.

Succession planning. What does a new executive, director, or trustee need to know about the institution he or she inherits? Whether you want to build on past achievements or take the organization in a new direction, we help you understand that legacy and how it drives issues such as strategy, compliance, and risk management.

Family governance and wealth management. For families and family firms preparing for generational change, we use your family history to capture illuminating stories, codify enduring values, and cultivate an ethic of stewardship, helping you to sustain wealth and purpose across generations.

Editorial Services

Winthrop works with senior leaders to conceptualize, develop and communicate their ideas in compelling fashion.

The Winthrop Group offers a range of editorial and presentation services, including 

• developmental editing and ghost-writing of books, memoirs, articles, and annual reports 
• executive speech-writing 
• script-writing and development of film and video.

Drawing on your individual and institutional experience, we emphasize stories as a means to illustrate and reinforce key messages. The result is a compelling, authentic presentation that helps you communicate with clarity, elegance, and impact.

Winthrop professionals have superior research and writing skills, a breadth of subject matter expertise, and strong relationships with leading editors, agents, publishers, videographers, and public relations firms. In addition to developing articles for leading business and general interest journals and publications, such as Harvard Business Review, we have placed numerous books with prestigious publishing houses around the world, including Oxford, Cambridge, University of Chicago, Hyperion, John Wiley & Sons, and Harvard Business Review Press.