What got you here won’t get you to the next level.
What got you here won’t get you to the next level.
Are any of these
familiar?
01
Too many decisions still come back to you.
You hired well, you delegated the tasks, and somehow the decisions come back to you. So the business moves only as fast as you do.
02
The vision is clear. The road there is not.
You know exactly where you want to take the business in three years. But you do not know how to get there with the team and the operations you have today.
03
Revenue is up, yet the business is harder to run.
Growth was supposed to make things easier. Instead, every new client and every new hire adds weight, and running the business feels a lot heavier than a year ago.
04
You find out something is wrong when it is already a problem.
You do not have the full picture of the business, and you are not sure what your numbers and cash flow really say. Your plate is full. You know you should delegate, but not what to hand over, or where to start.
05
The market is moving faster than the business.
Your clients’ needs have changed, AI has changed what they expect, and the offer that built your name is starting to age. You know the business has to pivot. But it was built for what used to work, and it will not turn on its own.
06
You want to step back, hand over, or sell, and the business is not ready.
A buyer pays for what works without you. How much of your business would still run if you stepped away for three months?
If you recognise your business here, the problem is not effort, and it is not your team.
The business has outgrown the way it is run.
What if the missing piece was a Fractional COO?
What got you here is you: your energy, your standards, your hands on everything. What gets you to the next level is different. It is a business that runs on systems and owners, not on your constant attention. Building that is a full-time job, and it is not yours: yours is the vision, the clients, the growth.
That job belongs to a COO. At your stage it is not yet a five-day-a-week job, so hiring one full time means buying more of the role than the business needs. Leaving it unfilled means it lands on you. A fractional COO is the third option: the same seniority, for the days the work actually takes.
How I work
In practice, I become your number two, and your sparring partner on the big decisions. I diagnose what is missing, then I do the work myself:
An owner for every function.
A decision rhythm your team keeps.
Systems that run properly.
Dashboards that show you the numbers before you ask.
And once the structure is in place, AI workflows that take work off your team.
I stay inside the business, leading the change, until it holds.
01
Diagnose the business
02
Create an operating plan
03
Execute the plan
The Operational Snapshot
Nine dimensions, one read of your business.
Experience has taught me that operational problems rarely sit where the founder thinks they are. And a framework, or a strategy book, can tell you what a well-run company looks like. It cannot tell you where your own building is leaking.
I built the 9D with another fractional COO to answer that. Nine lenses on the operational system of a business, made for founders who grew a company from nothing and were never trained to run the operations that came with it. It stands on proven frameworks and on more than forty years of operating experience between us.
Every engagement starts with a thorough Operating Review.
Format
Up to four weeks, one diagnostic.
The Operating Review
Know exactly what is holding your business back, and what to do about it.
Format
Six months recommended. Month one is the Operating Review.
The Operating Partnership
Free yourself from daily operations, with a number two who builds as she goes.
Format
I help you choose your operator, train them on your business, and stay beside them until they can run it.
The Operator Training
Put the right operator in charge of your operations, chosen with you and trained on your business by myself.
Who I work with
Founders
You run a startup, a scale-up or an established SME, with a team in place and revenue between $500K and $5M. You feel you are hitting a ceiling: too many decisions still go through you, and the structure will not keep up with your growth.
Tech and deep tech · Agencies · Professional services · Education · Health and wellness · Membership communities
Funds and investors
Private equity, venture capital and family offices.
If you are planning to acquire or invest in a company, the Operating Review tells you what financial due diligence cannot: where founder dependence sits, what breaks at scale, and whether the current team can deliver the plan. After you invest, the Operating Partnership puts a senior operator inside the company, week after week, building the structure that carries the plan.
✗
I am not the right person if you are still testing what you sell, or if you want a pair of hands with no strategic mind, rather than a second brain. I will say so on the first call, and point you to someone better suited.
Case studies
The Operating Partnership
Structuring a founder-led community for its first paid membership
A founder-led community with no structure behind it. I defined the membership, priced it and built the operating base to launch it.
Read the case →
The Operating Partnership
Structuring a growth-stage marketing agency to scale
A founder-led agency running on manual processes and scattered tools. I rebuilt the offers and the pricing, and started mapping the workflows, so it could scale.
Read the case →
What clients say
“
“…felt like someone finally turning the lights on in a room I’d been navigating in the dark for years. For the first time in a long time, I feel genuinely calm. Clear. Ready. Like I’m finally moving, but on tracks.”
Elsbeth Blekkenhorst-Tammes
Founder, WWC
“
“Working with her genuinely feels like having a safe pair of hands in the room. She balances rigour with practicality. Nothing feels over-engineered, yet nothing important is left loose.”
AHP
CEO of an international professional association
“
“Clemence helped me set up systems for my work with international clients - her approach has been a game changer.”
Dr Shaheena Janjuha-Jivraj
Founder, Cygnet Consultancy and Delta Futures
FAQ
What’s the investment?
It depends on the shape of the engagement: the scope, the number of days, the business itself. Get in touch and we will scope it together. For the Operating Partnership, the level is agreed at signature and recalibrated after the Operating Review, in either direction, with the Review as the evidence. You will never receive a timesheet from me.
Why six months for The Operating Partnership?
The first 2-4 weeks are dedicated to the Operating Review: a thorough diagnosis of the business, and the plan that comes out of it. Changing the way a company runs takes longer than understanding it. Giving every function an owner, and settling a rhythm your team keeps on its own, is usually the work of two quarters.
Although I recommend six months, I am open to discussing a smaller structure: a three-month engagement, if it is tightly scoped and we agree together that it can bring a quick change. I always aim for the best return on your investment, and I advise accordingly.
Where does the 9D Framework come from?
The 9D was built in cooperation with Teresa Cavalla, another fractional COO. Between us: more than 40 years of operating experience, inside corporates, startups and founder-led businesses.
It stands on proven frameworks, on executive and leadership training, and on what we have watched work and fail inside real businesses.
It is not a frozen model. We run it in live engagements, reassess it, and update it, because the world it measures is moving fast, and a method that stands still falls behind. What you get is one view of your whole business, across nine dimensions.
We have already worked with a consultant but did not get any results. What’s your value proposition?
The difference is what happens after the analysis. A consultant studies the business, hands over recommendations, and leaves you to apply them. That last part is the hard one, because it has to happen while the business keeps running.
I start with a deep diagnosis of your business in particular: across nine dimensions, inside your systems and with your team, rather than a framework applied from the outside. Out of it comes a 90-day plan that we go through and agree together, so nothing is imposed on you.
Then I stay. In a Partnership I am inside the business, leading the change with your team until it holds on its own. And whatever is already working, I keep and protect.
Do you do the work, or advise on it?
In practice, I become the founder’s sparring partner, the number two of the business. I diagnose, architect, install, and pilot the people and systems that do the work. Doing your team’s tasks is not my job, and if it were, you would have bought a pair of hands and kept the same problem. When a project needs a specialist builder, a custom AI deployment for example, I bring one in and lead the delivery.
My team will not like being interviewed. How will you manage that?
That reaction is normal and I plan for it. Every conversation is agreed with you in advance, and we decide together how it runs. Nothing any individual says comes back to you attributed. What comes back is the pattern, which is the only part that is useful anyway.
Will structure make my company rigid?
That fear usually comes from having seen bad structure: process for its own sake. What I build removes ambiguity, not personality. One owner per function, decisions that stop waiting, numbers that arrive on time. Structures don’t restrict people. They free them.
Do you work in person, or remotely?
Both. In Qatar, in person is easy. Travel inside the GCC works too, agreed in advance, and the same goes for Europe when travel is taken care of. I also work fully remotely, and leading a team remotely is not a problem. We agree the balance of remote and onsite time when we scope the engagement.
