About
Negotiations Edge

The Professional Negotiation Consulting Firm Built for Deals That Matter

Negotiations Edge is not a law firm. It is not a management consultancy with negotiation as a line item. It is a specialized, pure-play negotiation consulting firm built for one purpose, and one purpose only: to help clients win their most important negotiations.

We work with executives, business owners, startups, and corporate innovation leaders across the United States. Based in Sacramento, CA and serving clients nationwide, we bring the same level of professional preparation to a salary negotiation as we do to a multi-million dollar IP licensing deal. The stakes may differ. The discipline does not.

Why Negotiations Edge Exists

Most professionals and organizations enter their most important negotiations without professional support. Law firms charge for legal expertise — not negotiation strategy. Management consultants treat negotiation as a footnote. And coaches can only take you so far when the stakes are real and the table is live.

NegotiationsEdge was founded to close that gap. To bring the level of preparation, strategic thinking, and real-time expertise that elite corporate negotiators use every day — and make it available to any executive, business owner, or innovation leader who has a deal worth winning.

Meet you Negotiation Consultant:
Ernesto Martinez, MBA

Founder & CEO, NegotiationsEdge Consulting Group
Former Microsoft Senior Director of Strategic Sourcing

Ernesto Martinez, MBA is a professional negotiation consultant and executive coach with more than two decades of experience in high-stakes commercial negotiation — including roles as Senior Director of Strategic Sourcing at Microsoft and innovation program leader at Intel.

Microsoft: Negotiating at the Highest Level of Corporate Deal-Making

At Microsoft, Ernesto served as Senior Director of Strategic Sourcing, overseeing negotiations for the silicon components powering some of Microsoft's most important products — Xbox, Surface, and Mixed Reality devices. He managed contracts for System-on-Chip technologies, wireless components, custom silicon, and intellectual property rights, working directly with architecture teams and the CFO's office to align sourcing strategy with Microsoft's broader innovation and business objectives.

This was not advisory work. It was high-stakes negotiation at scale — multi-hundred-million dollar supply agreements with global semiconductor companies, where the wrong move had consequences measured in product timelines, margin structures, and competitive position.

The Entrepreneur's Lens

As a founder and entrepreneur himself, Ernesto has also operated on the other side — as the startup builder negotiating with larger organizations, managing early-stage resource constraints, and making the kinds of bet-the-company decisions that founders face. This convergence of enterprise experience and entrepreneurial instinct is what makes his approach different from consultants who have only ever worked inside large organizations.

Intel: Leading from Inside the Innovation Ecosystem

Ernesto's career also spans corporate innovation and R&D program leadership at Intel, where he led intrapreneurship initiatives and product innovation pipelines. This gave him something most negotiation consultants will never have: a firsthand, lived perspective on the deal environments that Chief Innovation Officers and R&D leaders navigate every day.

He knows what it's like to be the innovation leader fighting for budget, building a corporate-startup partnership from scratch, or navigating an IP licensing negotiation where the technical stakes are as complex as the commercial ones. That perspective is the foundation of the NegotiationsEdge Innovation Practice.

"I've sat on both sides of the table. As the negotiator closing the deal and as the innovation leader fighting to get the program funded. That experience is the reason Negotiations Edge exists. Most of the people who need a professional negotiator in their corner have never had one. We change that."

— Ernesto Martinez, MBA · Founder & CEO, NegotiationsEdge

Our Approach: The EDGE Framework

Every engagement at NegotiationsEdge is delivered through our proprietary EDGE Framework — a structured, four-phase system for achieving superior outcomes in any negotiation.

E — Evaluate

We begin with a full context analysis: the parties, history, constraints, and deal dynamics. We map BATNA and ZOPA on both sides of the table. We profile the counterparty — their goals, pressures, and likely tactics. And we define your ideal outcome, acceptable range, and walk-away position before a single conversation starts.

E

D — Design

We build your strategy: your opening position, anchoring approach, concession sequencing, and tradeoff packages. We design contingency plans for the scenarios most likely to emerge. You go into every negotiation with a playbook — not just a goal.

D

G — Guide

We run role-play simulations and stress-test your approach. In active brokerage engagements, we're at the table with you — or available in real time by standby. When the negotiation pivots, we pivot with it.

G

E — Execute & Evaluate

We support final agreement and deal closure. Then we debrief: what worked, what didn't, what leverage you used and what you left on the table. Every engagement ends with insights that make your next negotiation better.

E

Who We Work With

NegotiationsEdge works with a wide range of clients — united by one thing: they have a negotiation ahead of them where the outcome matters.

  • Executives negotiating salary, compensation, or key leadership deals

  • Business owners renegotiating supplier contracts or navigating partnership agreements

  • Startup founders in fundraising, term sheet, or key hire negotiations

  • Mid-market and enterprise procurement and BD teams

  • Chief Innovation Officers managing corporate-startup partnerships and IP licensing deals

  • R&D and technology leaders negotiating consortium agreements, JDAs, and technology transfer

We are based in Sacramento, CA and work with clients across the United States and remotely. If you're not sure whether NegotiationsEdge is right for your situation, book a free 30-minute discovery call. We'll tell you honestly whether and how we can help.

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