Fractional COO
If every decision still routes through you, the company has a COO shaped hole and you are filling it at night. A fractional COO from our team takes operations off your desk: the weekly rhythm, the scorecard, the people problems and the processes that never got written down. Ali leads the engagement and an operations specialist from his team does the daily work with your managers.
What you leave with
An operating cadence that runs without you, managers who own their numbers, and a company that can survive your two week holiday.
Who it is for
- Owners who are the approver for every quote, schedule and hire
- Companies with good people, no structure and the same fires every month
- Investors who need an operator in the business they just bought
What we deliver
- An operating cadence: daily huddle, weekly leadership meeting, monthly review, quarterly planning
- A one page scorecard with five to ten numbers, each owned by a named person
- An accountability chart showing every seat, its owner and what they own
- Written processes for the workflows that cause the most rework
- Manager coaching so your team leads run their own meetings
How it runs
01Diagnose
Two weeks with you and your managers, mapping how work actually flows, where it stalls and which decisions only you can make.
02Design
We agree the cadence, the scorecard and the accountability chart, and which decisions leave your desk first.
03Install
The specialist runs the meetings with your managers for the first quarter and reports weekly.
04Release
Your managers run the cadence. We move to monthly check ins or help you hire an operations lead.
Engagement and fees
Fractional Executive band, $25K to $60K per month on outcomes, three month minimum. A 90 Day Sprint ($80K to $250K) suits companies that need the whole operating system installed at once. Every engagement is scoped after a call and confirmed in writing. See consultations and fees.
The owner as bottleneck
The pattern is familiar. The owner is the best technician, the best salesperson and the only person with the full picture, so everything waits for them. Growth stalls at the owner's capacity, not the market's. The owner is exhausted and the business is worth less than it should be, because a buyer sees a company that cannot run without one person.
A fractional COO builds the structure the owner never had time to build, then hands it to the managers.
What the first ninety days look like
Week one and two are listening. We shadow a dispatch morning, a sales handoff, a month end close. By week three you have a scorecard and a weekly meeting with an agenda, a timekeeper and decisions recorded. By week six the first processes are written and in use. By week twelve you have missed two leadership meetings on purpose and the company did not notice.
Progress is measured by the decisions you no longer make, as much as by margin or on time delivery.
What to prepare and common mistakes
Bring your organisation chart as it really is, not as the website says, the last three months of financial statements and a list of the ten things that reached your desk last week. Honest inputs make the diagnosis fast.
The common mistake is announcing the new structure before the managers trust it. We introduce the cadence as a help to them and we never use the meeting to assign blame. Structure that humiliates people gets quietly abandoned, however good the chart.
Industries where we run this most
Questions about this service
Who actually does the work, Ali or a specialist?
Both. Ali leads the engagement, runs the diagnosis and attends the leadership meeting. An operations specialist from his team does the weekly work with your managers, and you meet that person first.
Does a fractional COO replace my general manager?
No. If you have a general manager, we give them a cadence and a scorecard. If you do not, we fill the gap until you are ready to hire one, and we help you write the role.
How fast will I get my time back?
Most owners feel the difference inside the first month, when the weekly meeting starts catching problems before they reach you. Stepping back fully depends on how many decisions only you can make, and we track that number.
Can you work on site in Vancouver?
Yes. We are based in Vancouver and work on site across British Columbia, with video and phone between visits. Operations work benefits from being in the building, so we plan site days early.
Tell us which seat is empty.
A 30-minute call with Ali about the business and the people running it. You leave knowing which role to fill first and whether fractional, outsourced or a hire is the right answer, whether or not we work together.