Business Operations & Strategy
Business operations and strategy for complex, cross-functional work.
I help leaders understand what is getting in the way, make the operating choices the situation requires, and turn them into clear priorities, useful measures, and accountable execution.
My experience spans country-market entry, regional and global operations, portfolio strategy, organizational change, and content and AI/data supply across Fotolia, Adobe, and Kairos Aureum.
Discuss your situationFor Directors, Vice Presidents, General Managers, and functional leaders responsible for making a changing or complex remit work.
Where I help
Situations I help leaders work through.
The immediate issue may be a new remit, a reorganization, unreliable reporting, or a cross-functional initiative that is not moving. The work usually requires both an accurate view of what is happening and practical decisions about what changes next.
- A new or expanded remit needs a reliable view of what is happening and what to address first.
- A reorganization or leadership change has left roles, decision rights, priorities, or working relationships unclear.
- Reporting, KPIs, or operating reviews produce activity but do not support the decisions leaders need to make.
- Several functions share an outcome, but ownership, dependencies, and escalation paths are not working.
- A new market, portfolio, or growth initiative needs clearer priorities, evidence, and resource choices.
- A marketplace, content, creator, or AI/data initiative has a mandate but not yet an operating model that can carry it into execution.
Experience
Operating experience across growth, change, and scale.
Across 14+ years at Fotolia, Adobe, and Kairos Aureum, my work has ranged from launching and growing markets to leading global portfolio operations and building a new content and AI-training-data acquisition function for Adobe Stock and Firefly.
At Adobe, I led senior managers and individual contributors across a globally distributed organization spanning geographic growth, key accounts, community, user support, and education.
Through reorganizations, leadership changes, and shifts in mandate, I reset roles, operating priorities, reporting, OKRs, and KPIs around the decisions and outcomes that mattered. Across those transitions, I developed managers into broader leadership roles and established the quarterly planning and business-review cadence used to set priorities, allocate resources, and maintain accountability across the organization.
I built portfolio forecasts, measurement systems, and weekly KPI reviews and led a cross-functional content-metrics forum with vice-president-level participation.
I later built and led a new content and AI-training-data acquisition function for Adobe Stock and Firefly, with responsibility for its operating model, governance, resource allocation, supplier and commercial decisions, quality controls, and cross-functional delivery.
Earlier work included Brazil market entry and Latin America market and content growth across campaigns, events, partnerships, customer operations, localization, and regional team development.
Across those roles, the recurring work was to understand the operating problem, make tradeoffs and ownership explicit, and build mechanisms that could carry a decision into execution.
How I work
Advice grounded in how the organization actually operates.
I work directly with the accountable leader. Depending on the problem, I review operating evidence, speak with selected stakeholders, test assumptions, clarify decision rights, redesign measures or operating cadences, and map the actions required to move forward.
I distinguish documented facts, recurring stakeholder patterns, assumptions, and judgment. Recommendations are designed around the client's actual people, constraints, and management process.
The scope, schedule, and fee are agreed before work begins. I conduct the analysis and deliver the work myself.
A focused starting point
Operating Decision Sprint
When one operating question is holding up progress, the Operating Decision Sprint provides a focused way to resolve it.
Over 15 business days, I review the relevant operating evidence, gather targeted perspectives from the people closest to the work, and develop a recommendation with the decision rights, dependencies, measures, guardrails, and 90-day actions needed to carry it forward.
You receive:
- A clear recommendation, its rationale, and the material alternatives considered.
- A practical view of ownership, dependencies, and the stakeholder patterns affecting the decision.
- The measures, guardrails, risks, and unresolved questions that should govern execution.
- A decision-specific 90-day action sequence with priorities, owners, dependencies, and checkpoints.
The exact scope is confirmed before work begins. When the need is broader or shaped differently, I also take on a limited number of separately scoped advisory engagements.
Discuss your situationStart a conversation
What are you trying to improve, resolve, or decide?
Share enough context for me to understand the situation and timing. Do not include confidential, privileged, or sensitive information. I will review your inquiry and reply within two business days with the most appropriate next step.