Rebuilding Organizational Clarity at a 350-Employee CRO in 40 Days

Broad access was granted across teams, systems, and leadership to observe how decisions and execution actually flowed—then translate findings into immediate operational improvements.

Organization

Mid-Size Bioanalytical CRO (350 employees)

Sponsor

Chief Operating Officer

Scope

8 Departments · Commercial → Delivery

40-day embedded engagement

92-step workflow mapped + automated

4.7× cascading failure pattern quantified

30 meetings in 30 days (8% of workforce)

2,000 contracts analyzed · Margins tightened ±15% → ±5%

8 zero-cost fixes · 3 redundant initiatives resolved

The Situation

Rapid growth created systemic execution strain—leaders could sense friction, but couldn't see the root causes.

Ownership was unclear across departments, redundant initiatives competed for the same resources, and handoffs between BD, PM, Ops, and Marketing degraded at every boundary. A five-year-old merger remained unintegrated in production systems. Leadership needed fast, accurate intelligence about how work actually moved through the organization—without guessing and without a long consulting cycle.

"Execution wasn't failing in one place. It was failing through accumulation—small handoff losses compounding until only symptoms were visible."

What I Did

Mapped the system, quantified the risk, and delivered implementation-ready fixes to the C-suite.

Ran a "30 in 30" trust-building sprint—meetings across entry, mid, and senior levels to surface informal workflows and hidden workload

Mapped intake-to-delivery operations across eight departments; documented a 92-step workflow and quantified a 4.7× cascading failure pattern

Automated workflow visualization (VBA) for real-time accountability tracking

Analyzed 2,000 contracts to formalize pricing governance—tightened margin variance from ±15% to ±5%

Built a BI dashboard surfacing client-risk signals two days earlier than prior process

Consolidated 100+ commercial battle-deck slides into a coherent executive narrative

Delivered 8 zero-cost operational improvements and resolved 3 redundant initiatives

Presented strategic recommendations with ownership pathways directly to CEO and CCO

Process Visualization

Mapping accountability drift across the workflow lifecycle.

RACI Workflow Visualization showing accountability patterns across workflow steps

RACI visualization used to advise executive leadership on procedural gaps and accountability friction across eight departments.

What Changed

Organizational clarity restored—without forcing a new bureaucracy.

Execution risk made visible and explainable across departments for the first time

Direct working relationships built with CMO, CSO, CIO, CCO, and CEO within 40 days

Cross-functional alignment improved by translating fragmented signal into shared definitions and decision pathways

Legacy decisions and inherited system fragmentation exposed and documented for leadership action

Client Perspective

"Jacob came in to assess cross-functional workflows. Within two weeks, he was using our own data to surface risks and bring clarity to processes we hadn't examined closely. He built trust quickly and focused on internal realities—not external frameworks. I'd recommend him to companies growing quickly or needing analytical and operational support."

— Senior Director