We are humbled and grateful for the tremendous response to our Growth Advisory Practice (with the gaps the service line endeavors to fill, we will call it “GAP”) announcement over two months ago. Thank you to each and every person who reached out with congratulatory messages, positive feedback, asked thoughtful questions, and offered support and partnership! Since our announcement, we have had several calls, zoom and in-person meetings, and onboarded three new GAP client partnerships.
Based on our interactions and the questions we have been asked, we wanted to provide more context on certain aspects of GAP. First, to get a better understanding of the service line, may we recommend a quick five minute read through our GAP page on our website, including the FAQs (scroll to the bottom of the page). Now, let us dig a little deeper into the philosophy and approach.
Our service lines endeavor to fill a broad range of organizational talent gaps
With the 3 pillars of Fractional Leadership, Partnerships & Business Development and Risk Management underpinning them, we endeavor to provide a wide range of skills and experience including:
Here are a few examples of how we are currently supporting some of our Growth Advisory clients:
Client 1
Fractional IT leadership to a financial services company with 100% of the management team being women. We oversee the IT roadmap, including the implementation of IT initiatives.
Client 2
Strategic business transformation advisory support to a pandemic-impacted creative female business owner, with her business enabling women empowerment. We support the execution with our web development, marketing, and social media management services.
Client 3
Fractional CIO and COO leadership to a SaaS-based AI-enabled software startup, with the software enabling automation for SMBs. In addition to strategy and market positioning, our focus is on evolving the organizational culture and control environment, especially the Information Security, to enable growth.
Client 4
Fractional COO advisory to the founder of an R&D focused healthcare company, supporting their mission of providing affordable quality products globally, especially to developing nations. We provide strategy, branding, and partnerships & business development (more on this below).
Client 5
We are investors with Board presence to an eco-friendly wellness focused boutique hospitality business. We support the vision with governance, strategy, and financial oversight.
Client 6
Fractional CTO advisory to a lifestyle e-commerce start-up co-founded by women entrepreneurs. We provide product management and oversight, and act as a bridge between the service providers and the client, a critical element for the launch.
Fractional Leadership is our foundational and overarching service
Under fractional leadership services, we leverage our most experienced advisors with relevant expertise to fulfill strategic roles based on organizational talent gap(s), including Board Advisor, Board Member (more on this below), CEO, CFO, COO, CTO, CIO, CISO and more. We operate as leaders and trusted advisors to our client partners – founders, board of directors, owners, and/or executives.
With a long-term partnership mindset and razor focus on maximizing value and optimizing resources, we strive to develop organizational knowledge and skills internally within our client partners through education, guidance, and oversight. When necessary, we will bring in subject matter experts from our SolvedAF team, third party vendors, or offshore, in all cases taking accountability for the management of high-quality work in an efficient manner.
Unlike traditional consulting, our guiding principle for GAP is that we are holistic team members of our client partner organization and have their long-term growth as our top priority. With that approach, we have rejected engagements and revenue, where we believed there was an opportunity to leverage more cost-effective internal, other SolvedAF advisors, or offshore resources.
Fractional Leadership services provide a broad range of implicit benefits
As thought leaders in transformation, we bring expertise and best practices to help you create a progressive culture and provide the strategic leadership required for organizational growth. Our team encompasses a broad range of expertise, enabling us to provide a broad range of services mentioned above.
More importantly, there are implicit benefits that SSMBs may be able to leverage from this service:
We provide leadership with a strategic view and risk management underpinning all our services
Our experience and qualifications add gravitas and credibility when talking with strategic customers and stakeholders
When there is employee turnover, we retain the knowledge and are able to step in when necessary. As your long-term partners, possibly investors, we are not going anywhere!
Our Strategic Partnerships and Business Development can escalate growth
SAF can bring some highly strategic stakeholders to the table. In addition to professional careers with some globally recognized brands, we have a team of entrepreneurs that own other businesses with a broad international scope.
We have helped launch a national Canadian brand at a big box retailer in a Middle Eastern country, with ongoing conversations in India
Helped a small Canadian healthcare manufacturer expand their distribution network in some of the ASEAN countries, India, a couple of African countries, and a few Latin American countries, bringing in total revenues of close to $2.5 million in 1 year amidst all the supply chain challenges. We continue to support with contract negotiations and relationship management, including at the government level.
In advanced stages of helping launch a startup brand at a big-box retailer in a Middle Eastern country, with conversations ongoing for a Canadian launch
Ready to take advantage of our Growth Advisory services?
If you are curious to learn more about our Growth Advisory Practice, reach out to us for a chat.
About the Author
Ritesh Desai – With over 17 years of professional services and industry experience, Ritesh is well versed in governance, risk management, internal controls and audit. He developed a solid technical foundation in mature environments like Deloitte and CBS in New York moving on to work on digital transformations that powered high-paced growth at lululemon, GLENTEL, and Selfridges Group in Canada.
With a keen understanding of a wide range of organizational functions, including Finance, Information Technology, Operations, Human Resources, and Digital, Ritesh skillfully connects internal and external risks to their root causes. He promptly moves the dialogue to solution-driven strategic risk mitigation that drives growth using a culture and values-based leadership approach.
Learn more about SolvedAF at www.solvedaf.com.