Operational Structure 

Much of my focus as an operational leader is supporting profitability goals, prioritizing initiatives that contribute to long term scalability of a company, and ensuring teams are working effectively together.

Areas I've built operational structure include:

• Clearly documenting roles & responsibilities for all departments across the organization, ensuring individuals understand how their role fits within the organization.

• Evaluating organizational design in context of company goals to determine annual staffing needs & necessary operating changes.

• Developing and implementing standard operating procedures for critical processes across the company. I consistently reevaluate SOPs to ensure our processes are not hindering teams from delivering high quality work in a timely manner. 

• Improving and standardizing our new hire onboarding & training process.

• Establishing a consistent change management approach to support the company as it continuously evolves.

• Leading the digital transformation of a company, evaluating business needs, identifying technical options, and implementing business-wide solutions. 

• Establishing systems for tracking and analyzing progress against strategic initiatives.

• Stewarding a culture of continuous improvement and innovation.

Strategy & Execution

On an annual basis, I collaborate with the CEO and leadership team to establish strategic focus areas and OKRs (Objectives & Key Results) for the fiscal year. I then partner directly with each member of the leadership team to develop action plans & roadmaps on how to best achieve their annual goals.  

Throughout the year, I steer focus against the action plan to drive progress. My involvement ranges from overseeing and directing to leading specific initiatives.

Change Management

As ways of working change, capabilities evolve, and new systems are introduced, it's important to have a structured approach to change management to ensure that the benefits of change are realized. 

My approach to change management is as follows:

• Communicate early and often: Clearly articulate the reasons for the change, what the change entails, and how it will affect individuals as early and as often as possible. Repetition of communication is key!

• Involve stakeholders and team members in the process: Solicit feedback and input throughout the process. This helps reduce resistance to the change and increase buy-in.

• Provide ongoing training and support: Supply individuals and teams with the training and support they need to understand and adapt to the change. This helps reduce anxiety and increase productivity in the long run.

• Monitor progress and adjust as needed: Monitor the progress of the change management process and adjust as needed based on feedback and results. Depending on the scale of the change, it's likely ongoing "pulses" of training will be needed. 

Within my Operations leadership roles, I've overseen company's core systems stack, guaranteeing they meet the needs of the organization and work as an integrated & effective ecosystem. 

I've also played a driving role in the identifying, evaluating, implementing, and training teams on new technology & system solutions that evolve how teams work together, drive scalability, and improve individual contributions.  I have extensive experience in gathering and writing business requirements, partnering with vendors during the building process, and managing UAT (user acceptance testing) to ensure the system works for the organization and meets requirements.

These systems are used to enhance individual's day-to-day work (process documentation / training modules), digitize manual processes, and plan & build for the future. 

System Expertise

Process Optimization

Another area where I have contributed heavily is in the building & implementation of standardized processes and procedures across organizations.

How I approach evaluating and developing SOPs:

• Gain an understanding of the current processes & workflows: Shadow teams to observe how they work together and determine what's working and what's not. Is there a gap in the process? Do individuals know what they are specifically responsible for? Where in the process is the team operating well and how can that be replicated elsewhere?

• Hold 1:1s: Document the team's perspectives on process issues/wins, opportunities, and priorities to identify their day-to-day barriers and areas for improvement.

• Audit workflows: Deep dive into the team's top barriers / inefficiencies / pain points & develop an action plan to address.

• Execute the action plan: Depending on the findings from prior steps, this may include a minor process change, a major process change, or perhaps simply re-training the team on best practices / roles & responsibilities. 

I’m a bit of a project management nerd. Although I started my career in Client Service, I was regularly told how good I was at “moving work through the house”. From scoping & estimating, to contract development, to staff planning/resource management, timeline development, and managing project health, my foundational skill set lies in project management best practices.

Program Management skills:

• Lead estimate and work value conversations across assigned clients, including statements of work.

• Implement quality assurance processes for all scope, estimates, pricing, and contracts to ensure profitability.

• Partner with department/team leads to finalize staff and resource plans for clients/projects.

• Resource management: Ensure deployment of the right resources at the right time to drive effective and efficient workflows.

• Develop and manage timelines, leading cross-functional internal teams on large, complex programs.

• Manage vendor and contractor relationships related to projects. 

• Accurately track budget performance of programs and client revenue.

• Communicate timely project status to the client, internal client teams, and agency leadership.

Innovation Engineering

Trained in the Eureka Ranch Innovation Engineering methodology, I've played a key role in leading and stewarding innovation initiatives for organizations. Whether trying to solve a particular problem, or building a new capability or product, this methodology leverages a fool-proof process and toolkit to drive meaningful change for the business.

I'm happy to discuss more specificity around innovation projects as needed. 

The Innovation Engineering Toolkit