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Business results

How I’ve helped
businesses improve.

These examples show how I’ve helped businesses improve operations, build new revenue and make clearer decisions. Each explains the challenge, the work I led and the difference it made.

Solar retailer / Operations & technology

In practice: helping a solar retailer keep pace with growth

Rapid growth had stretched a solar retailer’s operations. The managing director was juggling sales and day-to-day operations, job processing had become a bottleneck, and new technology was adding complexity before delivering its intended benefits.

Over six months as a fractional GM of Ops inside the business, I worked with the owners to organise the team, simplify the systems and get a clearer picture of profitability.

A worker installing solar panels across a large rooftop.
On site. The work behind the operations.
Solar operations dashboard showing job locations, forecasts, finance and service requests. Identifying and financial details are redacted.
Operational dashboard gave everyone in the business a live view into the health of the business with key data points across sales, operations and finance.View full size ↗

What changed

Documented processes, governance, contractual agreements and an operational risk assessment supported these changes. The engagement concluded with a handover to a managing director.

Space for the director to focus on sales.

Clear operational roles, responsibilities and a regular working rhythm gave the team structure and allowed the director to focus on the sales team.

A simpler path for processing jobs.

I cleaned up and simplified monday.com around the operations team’s daily work, giving them a clear workflow to tackle the processing bottleneck.

Visibility into forecast job profitability.

I organised product pricing in Xero to support job-level forecasting, giving the owners a clearer view of what individual jobs were expected to earn.

Less time spent on administration.

I integrated Claude across the business’s software systems, turning recurring reports and routine processes into scheduled AI automations that replaced hours of manual administration.

Knowing what growth would cost.

The owners gained a better understanding of how far their existing cost structure could support growth and what further investment would be required.

Governance issues identified and acted on.

I identified structural governance issues affecting cash flow and constraining growth, explained their implications and recommended a review of the business structure. The directors acted immediately on those recommendations.

Experience across
the whole business

I’ve worked across operations, product, technology and commercial leadership. That helps me understand how a decision in one part of a business affects the people and work elsewhere.

I’ve built subscription revenue and developed services for business and government customers. Over the past decade, I’ve also sold more than five businesses, including businesses I built myself. My experience spans strategy, preparing small and medium businesses for sale, finding buyers, completing transactions and integrating acquisitions. Here are a few examples.

Digital & subscription growth

Coastalwatch: building subscription revenue

As Head of Digital then Director of Strategy, I transformed an advertising-funded website into an online subscription business for action sports, building recurring revenue and growing memberships and paying customers across related magazine businesses. We then expanded to create the 3 Crowns Media Group spanning over 10 business units. During my time leading digital & business strategy, we achieved the number-one app in the App Store and grew to over one million monthly active users, before selling all the businesses to various industry buyers that achieved a clean exit for the investors and owners.

Coastalwatch campaign artwork with its white wordmark over ocean water at sunset.
Coastalwatch Surf Check app, showing surf cameras and forecasts.
The digital product behind the brand.
Coastalwatch campaign artwork featuring a surfer turning on a green wave.
Coastalwatch campaign collage combining a monochrome portrait and a turquoise ocean wave.

Coastalwatch campaign imagery. A coastal business with a strong visual identity.

Spectur remote monitoring station overlooking an Australian coastline.
Remote monitoring for safety at Australian coastal blackspots.
Business growth & integration

3 Crowns Technologies / Spectur: building a business from existing technology

At 3 Crowns Technologies, I launched a new B2B venture using Coastalwatch’s hardware and back-end systems, creating digital coastal monitoring products for councils and state governments across Australia. The team delivered automated monitoring that met their coastal monitoring needs at a fraction of the cost. After stabilising and growing the operation, I focused on making the business efficient, profitable and ready for sale.

Vygo mentor matching and connection email product interface.
Leadership, strategy & AI

Vygo: clearer strategy, better decisions, greater investor confidence

Vygo provides student-support software as a service to large Australian universities. Working in higher education meant navigating the compliance requirements and organisational complexity of major institutions. I brought structure and working practices to the senior leadership team, helping clarify the business’s vision and strategy. A shared framework for making decisions helped the team use its time and budget more effectively, while giving employees a clearer understanding of the business’s direction and priorities. That clarity also helped improve the culture and gave investors greater confidence to back the business’s growth into international and other markets.

As Head of Product, I also put customer needs at the centre of development decisions. Smaller, evidence-based releases increased delivery velocity by 50%, and an AI-first roadmap delivered more than six AI products in the first six months. I strengthened governance around AI accuracy, compliance and customer trust.

Explore ways to work with me Understand the fractional COO role
Russell HoltByron Bay & beyond

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If you’d like help running your business or figuring out what comes next, let’s talk.

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