Elevate your operations. Drive sustainable growth.
Fractional COO and Chief People Officer leadership that streamlines how your business runs, strengthens your people, and turns growth into results that last.
When growth stops feeling like winning.
Revenue’s up, but profit’s slipping. Your best people are leaving. The team’s stretched thin and still spinning. And you’re answering every question in the building instead of leading it. It’s not you. The business just grew faster than the people and systems holding it up. So I start with a simple question, what keeps you up at night, and we build around the answer, until your leadership team is working on the business instead of drowning in it. The 2 a.m. spin quiets down. You sleep again.
A builder, for as long as I can remember.
I’ve been building things since I was a kid, always poking at how something’s done and asking if there’s a better way. That turned into a career: a marketing and event management degree, my CMP, and more than twenty years leading teams, including a long run at The Walt Disney Company, doing everything from corporate events and sales to consulting and a stint as a Producer at Imagineering.
But I haven’t just advised from the outside. I’ve sat in the chair. I helped take a company from $8M to $43M, built a 150-person remote team plus three international offshore teams, and watched turnover fall from the high 30s to single digits. Same lesson every time: a business only grows as far as its people and its systems can carry it.
That’s the work I love now. Helping founders and their teams stop firefighting, step back, and get back to the part of the business only they can do.
Where I go deep
- Operations and systems built to scale
- People, culture, and leadership development
- Change management that actually sticks
- Turning strategy into day-to-day execution
Tess Honan, CMP, Founder
Good systems don’t make people serve the machine. They free people up to do their best work.
Most industries. One pattern.
I work across most industries. It’s never really about the industry. It’s about a moment, when the business has outgrown the way it’s run and almost everything still runs through the person who built it. I go deepest in creative design, hospitality, construction, and professional services.
Professional services
Law firms, accounting practices, wealth management, advisory. The founder is the trusted advisor and the one who brings in the work, so the whole thing gets shaky the second they try to step back.
One founder I worked with was sitting in on every hire, partner all the way down to the front desk, because he didn’t trust anyone else with the brand. We built his leaders a playbook they could actually run with, and he let go. The business had gotten stuck on him instead of growing with him.
Construction & design/build
Construction, design-build, engineering. The founder is the expert everyone leans on, so growth just turns into chaos because every decision still runs through them.
A construction client kept getting stuck because site photos showed up unlabeled and out of order. We built simple intake forms and a system that sorts and orders the photos automatically, so the engineers could see site conditions at a glance.
Any of this sound familiar?
What you’re living with
- You’re stuck in the day-to-day instead of on strategy and growth
- Turnover is eating your profit and your momentum
- The team’s maxed out, and results still aren’t moving
- Too much lives in too few heads, and that scares you
- There’s no real plan for succession or growing your leaders
Why we’d be a good fit
- You’ve got good operators, you just need stronger leadership above them
- You’re open to looking at how culture and leadership shape performance
- You’re ready to invest in your people, not run one more efficiency project that ignores them
Services that drive results.
Three ways to work together, each built to steady operations, strengthen your people, and turn strategy into measurable growth.
Fractional COO & Chief People Officer
Plus Fractional EOS Integrator
- Senior leadership in the seat, without a full-time hire
- Operations and people, run together
- As your EOS Integrator, turning the vision into traction
- Systems and structure built to scale
Executive & Leadership Coaching
For leaders finding their footing
- New leaders and first-time managers
- Executives leading through real growth and change
- People stepping into a bigger role or a new one
- The confidence to have the hard conversations
Strategic Advisory
A first step, or an ongoing partner
- Strategic planning and a clear-eyed look at operations
- Change management and culture
- Smart systems, from searchable SOPs to live dashboards
- Focused projects, training, and facilitation
A partnership, not a transaction.
We start by talking, build some trust, and let the work grow as your team gets stronger. I’ll bring in regular retrospectives too, a habit I picked up at Imagineering, where we learn out loud and get better as we go. There’s a real method under all of it. Mostly, what you’ll feel is that someone finally has this handled.
We talk
It starts with a discovery call. We get clear on the business, the people, and where things are stuck. No pressure, no pitch.
I step in
As your fractional COO or Chief People Officer, I work inside the business, steadying operations and building up your leaders.
It runs without me
As your team gets stronger, I pull back into advising and coaching, and leave you with leaders and systems that keep things growing.
When it works, you can step back and nothing wobbles. The team’s got it. You get back to the work only you can do. And yeah, you sleep again.
Measurable impact. Real results.
This is what tends to show up within the first year, and it compounds from there.
Took all the knowledge stuck in people’s heads and turned it into a searchable SOP library that’s easy to update, so it grows right along with the company.
Found and set up software that runs the scans and drafts first-pass reports, so the engineers start with something instead of a blank page.
Built a recruiting engine that writes sharper job posts, so the right people actually apply.
Set up dashboards inside the tools they already use, because no scoreboard means no movement.
When three long-tenured people left in one month, I rebuilt onboarding and training and refilled every seat with people who were even better.
You get the creative side and the operations side in one person, which is rarer than it should be.
Good questions, straight answers.
What does a fractional COO or Chief People Officer actually do?
I step into your leadership team part-time and own the operations and people side, the systems, structure, hiring, and day-to-day execution, so you can get back to leading. You get senior leadership without the cost or commitment of a full-time hire.
How do I know it’s time to bring someone in?
Usually it’s a feeling before it’s a number. Revenue’s growing but profit isn’t. Good people are leaving. You’re in every decision and every hire, and the business has outgrown the way it’s run. If that sounds familiar, it’s time.
How is this different from hiring a management consultant?
Consultants hand you a deck and leave. I get in the seat and do the work alongside your team, then hand it off once it runs without me. You get an operator, not a report.
What does an engagement look like, and how long?
We start with a discovery call. Most fractional engagements run six to twelve months or more, scoped to what the business actually needs. Coaching and strategic advisory can run alongside it or stand on their own.
What’s an EOS Integrator?
If your company runs on EOS, the Entrepreneurial Operating System, the Integrator is the one who turns the visionary’s ideas into traction, accountability, and results across the team. I can step into that role.
What industries do you work with, and where are you based?
Most industries, honestly. I go deepest in creative design, hospitality, construction, and professional services. I’m based in Greater Orlando and work remote-first, so I partner with clients anywhere.
Curiosity is the throughline.
I’m a certified sommelier, and a pretty relentless traveler and cook. What I love is figuring out how something’s made and what makes it great. Turns out that’s the same thing I do for a business.
The patience of a tasting, the pull of a new place, the care that goes into a good meal. It’s all the same instinct, and it’s the one I bring to your team.
Tell me what keeps you up at night.
Tell me where the business has you stuck. We’ll start with a discovery call, no pressure and no pitch, just a real conversation about what’s going on and whether I can help.