Case Studies
The work behind the claims
Selected engagements across utilities, apparel, retail and circular economy.
Case Study 1: Enterprise Planning Transformation
Utility / Energy
- One-year planning horizon
- $25B utility
- Reactive planning
- Regulatory requirements
- Disconnected from operational reality
- 16 million customers
- Degraded decision quality
- Multi-year capital commitments
- Deteriorating morale
- 13 functional areas
- No coherent pathway to operations
Situation
A $25B investor-owned utility serving more than 16 million customers across a major West Coast state was operating with a one-year planning horizon that left multi-year capital commitments disconnected from regulatory requirements and operational reality. Planning was reactive, leadership decision quality was degraded by the short-horizon model, and morale in planning functions was deteriorating. Strategy had no coherent pathway to operations across 13 functional areas.
Approach
Rebuilt planning infrastructure from the ground up using Hoshin Kanri, Kaizen, and LEAN methodology. Extended the planning horizon from 1 to 6 years, stabilizing multi-year commitments and shifting the function from reactive to strategic. Integrated the rebuilt plan with a multibillion-dollar multi-year rate case submission to the state's utilities regulator, requiring strategic, financial, risk, and operational commitments to align into a single regulatory-ready investment case. Reengineered governance, KPIs, and operating review cadence across all 13 functional areas — eliminating redundancy and establishing a clear accountability infrastructure.
27% reduction in planning cycle time
Planning function morale index +22% as the team shifted from reactive to strategic mode
2% reduction in organizational waste through governance redesign and streamlined review structure
Multi-year plan commitments stabilized across all functional areas, enabling higher-quality leadership decisions
Regulatory-ready investment case delivered: 6-year operational commitments translated across strategy, finance, risk, and operations
Results
Case Study 2: Go-to-Market Operations Redesign
Apparel / Retail
- Structurally too slow
- Apparel brand
- Commercial flexibility locked up
- Pandemic-era disruption
- Long-lead commitments
- Capacity without proportional output
- Global product-to-market operation
- Overhead rather than decisions
- Too resource-intensive
- 140-person organization
- Design-to-delivery timelines
Situation
A major global apparel brand's product-to-market operation was structurally too slow and too resource-intensive to respond to the volatility of pandemic-era disruption. Long-lead commitments were locking up commercial flexibility before conditions were knowable. Design-to-delivery timelines consumed capacity without producing proportional output quality, and meeting infrastructure across a 140-person organization was generating overhead rather than decisions.
Approach
Redesigned the end-to-end go-to-market calendar for apparel and accessories across global cross-functional teams. Introduced digital 3D prototyping tools and established direct co-creation workflows with Asia-based design teams, enabling twice the iteration cycles within the existing timeline. Cut long-lead assortment commitments significantly to restore commercial agility. Rebuilt the organization's meeting architecture to recover capacity and redirect it toward strategic decisions — eliminating structural overhead while maintaining decision quality across omnichannel delivery.
70% reduction in long-lead assortment commitments, unlocking 6% of product team capacity for higher-value decisions
67% increase in design team productivity through digital tooling and co-creation workflows (doubled iterations, same calendar)
35% reduction in sampling costs through 3D digital prototyping while maintaining decision quality
5% organizational time recovered (equivalent to 7 FTE) through meeting architecture redesign across 140 people
Results
Case Study 3: Operating Model & Customer Experience Redesign
Specialty Retail
- Siloed 1,100 stores and digital operations
- Checkout needed full redesign
- Blocked omnichannel category management
- Disconnected channel merchant teams
- Unaligned promotion, technology and execution
- Slowed commercial decision-making
Situation
A 1,100-store specialty retailer's merchant team was structured around channel silos — separate teams for stores and digital operating independently. The structure was preventing category management at omnichannel scale, slowing commercial decision-making. In-store checkout also needed a full redesign to align promotion strategy, technology, and operational execution.
Restructured the 50-person merchant team from channel-specific to a unified omnichannel operating model, redesigning roles, accountabilities, processes, and onboarding to enable simultaneous category management across all channels. Redesigned the customer checkout experience across all 1,100 stores, integrating promotion strategy, in-store technology, and execution standards — including a learning-and-development component to build the team's own fluency with the new in-store technology, supporting both the customer-facing experience and the team's confidence using it.
Approach
8% customer satisfaction improvement post-checkout redesign across 1,100 stores
11% store team morale improvement following the checkout redesign
Unified omnichannel operating model established across a 50-person merchant team, enabling simultaneous cross-channel category management for the first time
Results
Case Study 4: Circular Take-Back Integrity & Value Recovery
Circular Economy / ReCommerce
Situation
- Unproductive inventory consuming capacity
- Series D resale platform
- Nowhere to go but landfill
- Losing recoverable value
- Brand-reputation risk
- Premium brand partners
- Counterfeit and fraud exposure
- Take-back supply chain
- Inflexible custom branding options
A Series D circular-economy resale platform, operating take-back and resale programs on behalf of a portfolio of premium outdoor and apparel brand partners, faced a problem at nearly every stage of the take-back supply chain: the quality of what entered that chain determined almost everything that happened downstream from it.
Upstream, verifying that incoming used product was genuinely authentic relied on processes that were inefficient, costly and not consistently dependable, a real exposure in categories like performance and luxury goods, where counterfeit product entering a resale program creates both fraud exposure and brand-reputation risk. Marking verified items to prevent fraud on the brand’s own retail side had similar limits: a time- and chemical-intensive process with a tagging dependency that constrained customization across partner programs.
Downstream, anything that didn't clear a partner's resale bar — whether failed authentication or failed condition — had nowhere to go beyond being written off to landfill, consuming warehouse capacity and leaving real commercial value unrecovered.
Approach
Built the take-back program's core integrity chain from the ground up, spanning three connected capabilities.
Authentication (upstream): Secured and contracted a third-party authentication vendor, established commercial terms, designed the verification process, and partnered with in-house engineering and product teams to integrate the solution — most critical in categories like luxury goods, where the stakes of accepting counterfeit product into a brand's take-back supply were highest.
Stamping (midstream): Tested alternatives to the existing time- and chemical-intensive marking process, built the business case for the selected approach, then piloted, proved and scaled a custom-branding stamping capability, including training and rollout, to semi-permanently mark authenticated take-back items, strengthening the brand’s presence in its resale program and limiting fraud risk on its own retail side.
Next-Best-Use (fallout): For anything that didn't clear a brand's resale bar — whether flagged during authentication or falling short of condition standards — built a Next-Best-Use Program from zero: developed the business case and per-unit, per-category costing and pricing to inform sales, business development, and partner onboarding; built the operational sub-processes, documentation, and training materials; tested and selected downstream vendors; and gave brand partners a credible way to close a real gap in their own ESG commitments.
Throughout, built a capability categorization framework (Fundamental, Recovery and Enhance tiers) to prioritize technology investment across brand partner launches, operating as the cross-functional bridge between Product, Engineering, and Business Development.
Results
Authentication and stamping capabilities established, protecting brand partners, their customers and the platform against counterfeit entry and downstream retail fraud on verified take-back product
24% reduction in operations cost through the new stamping capability, removing a prior tagging dependency that had limited customization and opening far greater branding flexibility across partner programs
Team morale improved as the new product stamping process replaced work that had involved temperamental chemicals and machinery, alongside dependency on temperature and humidity conditions
15% increase in product list price through the authentication capability, enabling entry into the luxury goods category
13% of warehouse capacity unlocked through the Next-Best-Use pathway, alongside new revenue streams across repair, upcycle, donation, and recycling channels
Cross-functional capability-prioritization framework adopted to guide technology investment across all brand partner launches
Where plans break down
Strategic Translation & Governance ·
Execution, Measurement & Improvement
Ways to work together
Advisory · Diagnostic Sprint · Transformation Engagement · Fractional Leadership
Who’s behind the work
Founder-led · People first · Service-centered · Clarity and accountability