Strategy & Execution Support in Canada. A supporting business-performance capability.
Scoped strategy and execution support brought into a business-performance mandate when the required leadership and capacity are confirmed.
Mandates are led by the principal who sits in the seat, and CEOs, owners and boards deal with him directly: Ghaleb El Masri. He is named in the engagement letter before work begins, and he is the person who answers when you call.
Operators who have held the seatTwo to four days per week in-seatFixed monthly retainerSuccessor in seat at hand-off
Operator-grade strategy. Executed alongside you.
A fractional COO or CTO engagement starts on a date confirmed in the written scope and typically stays 6–14 months — covering strategy, operating rhythm, and a documented hand-off to a named successor.
COO and Chief Transformation Officer roles inside multinational businesses — held, not advised from the outside. Decisions made with real stakes: missed quarters, hiring misfires, board accountability. Theory gets tested against consequence, not slide-deck peer review.
Every engagement produces the three to five moves that determine the year. Cut from the thirty competing for attention, stress-tested against capital, team bandwidth, and market timing. The board reads it in ten minutes.
We stay embedded past the slide deck. Strategy meets reality within ninety days and we are there when it does. No handoff to the ops team and exit.
Four triggers. One operating outcome.
When do you need a fractional COO or strategy partner? Engagements typically start with one of these four situations. The seat is the same; what differs is which gap needs closing in the next 90 days.
Founder transition / scale gap
The operating model that took the company from $5M to $20M won’t take it to $50M. We embed as the missing operator while the founder rebuilds the leadership team and the rhythm — without losing the velocity that got you here.
Post-acquisition / post-PE integration
New owners, new board reporting, new operating cadence. A fractional COO or CTO bridges the first 6–12 months while the permanent C-suite is hired and the integration playbook is run.
Interim coverage
A C-level departure with a 6–9 month hiring window. We sit in seat with full ownership — not as a consultant — so the company doesn’t lose a year while it searches.
Strategy with execution muscle
You don’t need a new strategy; you need someone to land the one you already have. We embed alongside the existing leadership team to drive the three to five moves that actually determine the year.
The operating system we hand over.
What stays when we leave: a documented operating cadence, a calibrated leadership team, and decision rights that keep running without us in the room.
Weekly leadership meeting reset, quarterly operating reviews, board-pack discipline. The rhythm that translates strategy into decisions instead of slide decks.
Honest 9-box on the leadership team, hiring decisions for the two or three roles that matter most, and a documented decision framework for the ones that come next.
A small number of metrics that actually predict outcomes, clear ownership for each, and a documented decision-rights map so the next hard call doesn’t bounce back to the CEO.
Whether this is your problem — or a different one.
You should be able to decide whether to call us without calling us. Both columns are the honest version.
- A CEO or owner of a $5M–$50M business who has run out of bandwidth, not ideasThe strategy is roughly right and the execution is the constraint. You need someone in the seat owning a scorecard, not another set of recommendations.
- A plan exists and nothing has moved in two quartersThe most common version of this work: three to five moves chosen out of thirty, sequenced, owned by name, and reviewed on a weekly cadence until the rhythm holds without us.
- The next stage of growth needs a different operating modelWhat got the business to its current size will not get it to the next one, and the redesign has to happen while the business keeps running.
- A board or investor has asked for a credible plan on a deadlineA time-boxed diagnostic first, then the plan, then the execution cadence — in that order, and with the diagnostic honest enough to change the plan.
- You want a strategy document to circulateIf the deliverable is the artefact rather than the outcome, a traditional consultancy will do it faster and cheaper than we will. This practice is priced and staffed to stay through execution, which is the expensive part.
- A permanent hire is the right answer and you already know itWhen the need is durable and full-time, the full-time role is better value than any fractional arrangement. We will say so in the first conversation rather than the fourth.
- A complaint has been filed and the process will be examinedThat is an independent workplace investigation, and it has to be independent to be worth anything. It sits in a separate practice with a separate engagement letter.
- The decision needs licensed legal, tax or audit sign-offWe work alongside your counsel and advisors and we do not replace them. Where a matter turns into litigation or a filing, it belongs with them and we refer it out.
- You need a few hours a month of sounding-board timeThis practice is built around being embedded two to four days a week for six to fourteen months. Below that, the cadence that makes it work does not exist, and you would be paying for a structure you cannot use.
A founder-led healthcare network grew revenue 38% year over year — through a pandemic year — after a five-pillar strategy and 30+ initiatives were put under portfolio governance.
That figure is the canonical value from the published engagement brief and is verified against it on every build. Fuller briefs for a sample of mandates are in the case studies.
Five moves. No shortcuts.
The written scope identifies the proposed lead, start assumptions, operating rhythm, measures and handoff. Availability and delivery dates are confirmed before the mandate is accepted.
- 01
Intake & scope
We begin with a fit and scoping review of the leadership gap, mandate and cadence. If the work advances, the written proposal confirms the proposed principal, commercial model, timing assumptions, decision rights and measures.
- 02
Diagnostic
Two-week immersion: voice-of-org interviews with the leadership team and one layer down, operations and P&L review, customer-side and capital-stack diagnostics. Output: a written assessment of the gap and an honest recommendation, even when that recommendation isn’t us.
- 03
Embed
COO, CTO, CRO, CHRO, or Managing Director in-seat two to four days per week. The principal joins the leadership cadence as a peer, owns the scorecard, owns the hires that close the gap, and owns the outcomes the board is watching.
- 04
Operating rhythm
Ninety-day build: decisions tracked, scorecard live, systems documented, talent calibrated, and the team trained on the operating model they will inherit. The point is to leave behind a rhythm that keeps running — not a deck and a fond memory.
- 05
Hand off
Successor named — internal promotion when possible, external when it has to be — and onboarded before we exit. We leave on a defined date with the operating system documented, the scorecard in use, and a 90-day post-engagement check-in scheduled to make sure it holds.
Want to know which seat would close your leadership gap fastest?
Lived the seat. Kept the system.
AI Strategy for a Global Luxury Brand
A €4B+ luxury goods company turned scattered AI pilots into a coherent 3-year roadmap — 12% forecasting lift, 8% conversion gain, and an approved enterprise AI investment plan.
Digital Transformation of a Canadian Manufacturer
A 60-year-old manufacturer modernized operations, improved EBITDA, and readied for succession.
Fractional CHRO Scales People Ops at a Growth-Stage Fintech
Fractional CHRO rebuilt HR foundations for a 150-person fintech scaling toward 300.
They built the operational systems we needed without slowing down our entrepreneurial pace. Exactly the balance we were looking for.
What CEOs ask before they hire a fractional operator.
How much does a fractional COO cost? How long does an engagement run? When does fractional beat a full-time hire? Answers to the most common questions below.
- What does a fractional executive engagement cost?
- Engagement pricing depends on scope, role, and time commitment — typically 2–4 days per week in seat. We scope in a 30-minute call and quote a fixed monthly retainer in a written scope before any work starts.
- How long does a typical Strategy & Execution engagement run?
- Engagements typically run 6–14 months: a two-week diagnostic, a 90-day operating rhythm build, and a defined hand-off. We are not a permanent arrangement — the engagement ends when a successor is in seat and the operating system holds without us.
- When is a fractional COO better than a full-time hire?
- A full-time COO search typically runs 6–9 months and lands at $350K+ all-in. A fractional engagement starts on a date confirmed in the written scope, with a senior operator sized to the stage you are actually in. If you are $5M–$50M and still scaling the operating model, fractional usually wins on both speed and total cost.
- How do you hand off at the end of the engagement?
- A documented operating system stays — scorecards, cadence, hiring process, decision rights. A successor is named, internal or external, and on-boarded before we exit. We leave on a defined date, not an open-ended retainer.
- Do you work across industries or only technology?
- We work across technology, professional services, industrial, and healthcare — any mid-market business where the operating complexity has outgrown the founder or existing leadership. Our principals have sat in COO, CTO, CRO, and MD seats themselves.
Three free tools to diagnose the gap.
Fractional vs. Full-Time Executive Calculator · Canada
Free Canadian fractional vs. full-time executive calculator — side-by-side cost, capacity, and 3-year total cost of ownership for COO, CFO, CHRO, CTO.
Workplace Culture Risk Diagnostic
Free workplace culture risk diagnostic — heatmap across 8 dimensions with intervention priorities before exit interviews tell you what went wrong.
Leadership Pipeline Assessment · Canada
Free Canadian leadership pipeline assessment — bench-strength score with named succession priorities, development gaps, and a first-90-day roadmap.
From the same family. Often scoped together.
Diagnose the gap. 30-minute call.
Share the leadership gap at a high level. We will reply within one business day and confirm whether an initial fit conversation makes sense.