I offer part-time and contract COO services and advisory to businesses for whom a full-time COO doesn’t make sense.
HOW I WORK
This works best on a retained basis over a longer period of time: the more I get to know your company, the more value you’ll get out of me. I can cover as much or as little of my areas of expertise as the business requires. I can also work on a project basis with a defined scope and duration.
I work with small but mighty teams that are real estate investment focused or facing. I have a particular interest in sustainability and impact. Having spent 20 years working in the digital industry, I bring a technology-focused approach. For COO services, a typical client will have anywhere from 10-50 employees and £/€5-25M of revenue.
HOW I CAN HELP
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Maintain, document and track joiner/leaver onboarding/offboarding processes.
Select and implement tools to facilitate HR administration, e.g.HRIS software.
Source and oversee employment counsel.
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Create performance management/reviews frameworks and processes.
Training (performance, IT, compliance)
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Establish recruitment framework/playbook
Manage headhunters
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Leadership coaching
Manage HR, IT, administrative, marketing,, strategy/ops professionals
People are your business’s key asset, and the source of your alpha. How you manage that asset - through your people and organisational practices - is a key differentiator.
People / HR
The days when finance and tech were separate sectors are long over. Having an in-house tech expert is a must, both to keep the engines humming, but also to turbo-charge the business.
Technology / IT
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Item description
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I am familiar with different certification frameworks and source vendors and design and implement processes to support certification.
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Configure shared filing systems and permissioning
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Oversight of a company’s suite of software and systems to advise on the best combination of cost, usability, effectiveness and security
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Tool selection and implementation approach
It’s a cliche but (because) it’s true: storytelling is everything. Business and finance may be about numbers but the most successful founders and investors are masters of narrative and relationships.
Marketing / Communications
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Oversee and manage brand, design, communications and marketing agencies
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Oversee development of website to reflect business positioning and personality
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Develop communications plan across channels
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Ensure alignment and clarity through internal communication
Strategic Planning
Most businesses are focused on day-to-day operations and struggle to make time to think about developments in the wider market, and what's next. Strategic planning makes time and space to do this in a structured way to maintain clarity and alignment. It needn't be time-consuming, but it needs to be disciplined.
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Ground up business and financial modelling and planning for new business or product operations
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Supplement your financial budgeting and forecasting with business objectives and milestones
Ensure your team is aligned to goals and staying that way over time
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Explicit prioritisation of business objectives to ensure alignment, through a structured programme of planning and discussions
Special Projects
Some tasks and challenges don’t fall neatly into a bucket: maybe it requires a whole-business view that no single person or team has; maybe it requires skill or experience that the business doesn’t have. An external advisor can help quickly and efficiently diagnose problems and structure and deliver solutions.
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Coordinate across business to develop materials and templates to present to investors, including pitch decks and DD questionnaires
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Develop and operationalise a programme of policies and training suitable for your business size, working with leadership and the business
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Certain jobs are whole-company efforts: choosing and moving into a new office, setting up a new office, selecting and/or migrating to a critical vendor (IT, CRM, fund admin, accountant). I am a strong project manager who will do the heavy lift and surgically involve the team.