Who We Are
Most project failures are not technical. They are commercial and contractual problems that surface too late — a change order nobody priced, a scope gap nobody owned, stakeholders who quietly stopped agreeing. By the time these reach a claim, the cost is already locked in.
ATL Consult works the space between the technical, commercial, and contractual. We resolve those problems while the contract is still live — before they become claims, litigation, or lost time — and keep the parties aligned enough to finish the job.
Our Mission
To help industrial, energy, and capital-project organizations deliver complex work successfully — resolving commercial and contractual problems before they become disputes, and keeping stakeholders aligned enough to finish the job.
Our Vision
To be the advisor owners, contractors, and equipment suppliers call when a complex project's commercial health is at stake — the firm known for solving the difficult project and contract problems that others cannot easily resolve.
Erik Michel — Founder & President
ATL Consult is led by Erik Michel. For more than two decades, inside large organizations, he did what the firm now does independently: help keep complex projects commercially healthy and bring divided stakeholders to agreements that hold.
His work sits at one consistent point — where the commercial and contractual side of a project meets the technical and operational side — and much of it comes down to translating between stakeholders from different backgrounds, cultures, and priorities. As Commercial Manager at Foster Wheeler and Amec Foster Wheeler, he supported the acquisition and delivery of industrial power projects, provided the commercial backbone on complex bids, and helped drive a multi-year framework agreement with Shell to closure alongside the wider team. As Director of Engineering and later Project Services at Wood, he helped bring two operating units together and coordinated engineering across the Americas. As Chief Project Controls / Contract Manager at AtkinsRéalis, he managed a €250M+ vendor portfolio for the first-of-its-kind Aurubis Richmond copper smelter and led project controls on an ~$8B environmental compliance program for Southern Company across twelve sites. Earlier, he helped diagnose and turn around a troubled $30M environmental project — the work that became ATL's model for recovery.
Beyond the titles, one thread runs through all of it: he improves how teams work — lifting communication, morale, and momentum, especially when a project or a negotiation has stalled. It is quieter than a line on a résumé, but it is a large part of how divided groups end up aligned.
He is a mechanical engineer (Universidad Simón Bolívar) with an MBA (ESIC, Madrid), and has taught contract acquisition and negotiation at the University of Zaragoza. He works fluently in Spanish and English and has a working understanding of German. That range matters more than it sounds: much of ATL's best work is with foreign parents, often European, executing complex projects in the United States, where the distance between headquarters and the field is commercial, cultural, and sometimes linguistic at once.
The Convergence Method
Getting several parties to agree is not a matter of splitting the difference. Over twenty years, Erik developed a repeatable method for it: understand each stakeholder's real position privately, test candidate solutions one at a time to see how each party would react, and iterate a single evolving proposal across all sides until it reaches a version everyone can sign.
It is the same method whether the output is a contract, a recovery plan, or a way out of a dispute — which is why ATL treats negotiation, recovery, and stakeholder advisory as one discipline, not three services. It is what we mean when we say we bring divided stakeholders to agreements that hold.
One method, three moves — the same cycle whether the outcome is a contract, a recovery plan, or a way out of a dispute.
WHAT PEOPLE SAY
Erik knows very well how to set and pursue objectives. Due to his international background and intercultural knowledge, he has a lot of empathy and easily understands how to reach win-win situations.
Erik is an exceptional person in every way. Working with him is a guarantee of success for any company. He not only gets 100% involved in everything he does but is also a responsible person with impeccable ethics and always has a positive attitude that he knows how to pass on to the entire team.
Erik is a friend and solid professional. He gives 100% to everything and challenges his team to meet their ultimate capabilities. He merges technical proficiency with commercial acumen.
