Operational excellence for founder CEOs
Your product works. Your team is strong. Investors are watching. But something isn’t operating at the level it should. Too much runs through you, priorities shift faster than they ship, and ownership feels inconsistent. You don’t necessarily need a full-time COO. What you do need is operational excellence installed intelligently and economically, so the business runs with momentum, whether you’re in the room or not.
You’re leading a funded, growing company, and you know it needs elevation, not just more effort. A few things tend to show up together:
The goal is simple, and you feel it quickly:
We work as a focused, one-to-one partnership. I step in as your integrator, the operating counterpart to a visionary founder. I help you build the internal capability your company needs to run without you firefighting. It follows a simple arc:
We surface what’s quietly slowing the company down: the handoffs, bottlenecks, and unclear decisions that keep pulling you back in.
We clarify ownership and decision rights, align the leadership team, and cut the complexity so the right people can move without waiting on you.
We install a steady execution cadence of short feedback loops, clear priorities, and visible progress so momentum compounds and growth no longer depends on you being everywhere at once.
Shipped a two-year IT system replacement in a quarter of the time.
Unblocked stalled vendor work with daily, organization-wide visibility.
Delivered a global ERP in under half the budgeted time and cost.
Took a federal R&D program to proof of concept in weeks, not years.
I’m Steve — an operator, coach, and author who helps leaders simplify the complexity of growing a business. For more than 25 years I’ve worked at the seam where strategy meets execution: as a COO, a VP of Operations, and a hands-on guide to teams across tech, finance, healthcare, logistics, media, education, defense, federal and state government, utilities, manufacturing, and nonprofit.
I co-founded the Human AI Consortium, a collaborative of independent practitioners at the intersection of agility, organizational design, change, and AI. I also founded and lead Utah Agile, a 2,500-plus member professional community, and I’ve co-authored two best-seller books on modern product delivery. My work is grounded in principles rather than prescriptions, helping companies find what actually works instead of following models that don’t stick.
If this sounds like the help your company needs, I’d welcome a conversation. Send a note and I’ll get back to you personally.