Our Story

An organization founded on faith, relationships, change, learning, and family.  This is our story.

At the start of the long road to C2 Advising, Ken Carnes went out on faith and left the comfort and stability of a successful career with FedEx and launched Cornerstone Leadership, a leadership training company, in 1997 with David Cottrell.

With no clients, no revenue, 1000 professionally printed brochures, a purchased mail list (not even an e-mail list, this was before wide-spread internet) and an abundance of blind optimism, those brochures were sent with great anticipation. The brochure announced a three-day, intensive managers training session to be conducted in 25 hotels across the country.

Then reality hit. Out of the over 800 brochures sent, only 50 to 60 people called the 800 number or sent registration cards back to enroll. Obviously not a great start, so after six months, with two college tuitions looming and no college or retirement savings in the bank, a change was needed. Ken left and joined three training organizations over the next six years to learn and better understand the training and consulting business. During these subsequent six years, David Cottrell refocused Cornerstone Leadership on content development and built a very successful book publishing model, which still exists and thrives today.

Now with knowledge gained from his relationship with David and a better understanding of the training industry and business, Ken went back out on his own with his brother Ned to start Proseris Services. Over time, the company developed a robust set of team and organizational assessments and surveys. These surveys, coupled with a passion for turning feedback into change through advising and coaching, built a solid business foundation and a loyal client base.

However, as client’s needs and demands evolved, so did Proseris. Over time focus turned to employee and team engagement.  At this time, Ryan, Ken's son, entered the business after graduating from the University of Texas and working in the commercial real estate development industry for five years. Keeping the business in the family was important, so Ryan joining was tremendous.

However, like with any startup, Ryan had to sacrifice earnings in the short term to learn the business. Living on bare minimum compensation, Ryan jumped right in with a fresh mindset and perspective and introduced new client offerings and expanded capabilities including online training, employee and team engagement tools, an employee communications consulting offering and enhanced assessment and survey capabilities.

Soon, Ned would retire, and in 2017 Ken and Ryan decided to form Cornerstone Learning - now C2 Advising. This new organization would be dedicated to thought leadership, research, and learning that would allow us to truly transform performance and enhance engagement throughout client organizations. Even today, we work in faith and work together as a family establishing and cultivating authentic relationships. We are always evolving, changing, and learning to better assist our clients.

Our purpose has always been to enable talent and organizational success.  Now you know the rest of the story.