Case Study · 2019–2024
The machine that made the exit.
A company doesn’t become acquirable by accident. Before Everywhere Wireless sold to MC Partners, before the Zentro platform was recapitalized by Greystar Infrastructure, before three acquisitions got folded in — someone had to turn a fast-growing, founder-led internet company into an institution that ran on systems instead of intuition. As Chief of Staff, Innovation & People, that was the job. (The integration work is its own case study; this is the build that came before it.)
- 140%→<10%
- Annual employee churn
- 2
- Institutional exits
- ~12
- Talent-pipeline partners
- Inc. 5000
- Fastest-growing in the U.S.
Context
Everywhere Wireless was Chicago’s fastest-growing, top-rated independent ISP — and like most founder-led companies scaling at speed, it was outrunning its own infrastructure. The vision and the growth were there. The operating system, the people function, and the repeatable machinery underneath were not yet built to match. I joined as VP of Innovation & Culture and was promoted to Chief of Staff, Innovation & People.
Mandate
Build the operating and people infrastructure of a company professionalizing fast — so that growth stopped depending on heroics and started depending on systems.
Owned
Stopping the bleed.
When I took over, annual employee churn was 140% — the company was effectively replacing its entire workforce more than once a year, hemorrhaging institutional knowledge and spending relentlessly to re-staff. Within eight months I brought it to 20%; in the years after, under 10%. You cannot scale, integrate, or sell a business that loses its people every nine months. Fixing churn was the foundation everything else stood on.
The operating system.
I led the company-wide EOS implementation — scorecards, L10s, accountability charts, the whole cadence. This is the work that turns founder intuition into a company that runs on purpose: every seat accountable, every number visible, every week structured. It’s the difference between a company that’s growing and one that’s built.
The people function and talent pipeline.
I owned People company-wide. The standout was building strategic partnerships with nearly a dozen Chicago-area workforce-development organizations — a steady stream of vetted candidates that effectively eliminated the talent shortage constraining competitors. It became notable enough that workforce-development leaders interviewed me about how it worked, and it opened real career pathways into the communities we served.
The Chief of Staff load.
The general operating work that holds a scaling company together: a full remodel of the 20,000-square-foot office from the studs; building alternative-hiring partnerships; owning and turning around the call center; and driving the operational performance that landed the company on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies.
The Innovation Lab.
Innovation across all systems, platforms, data, integrations, and automation — the technical backbone that let operations scale as fast as the subscriber base.
Integration leadership.
When the acquisitions came, I was the integration lead, pre-deal through execution, on three of them — told in full in the integration case study.
Outcomes
- Cut annual employee churn from 140% to 20% in eight months, then under 10% — turning a company bleeding its workforce into one that retained and compounded its people.
- Built the company-wide operating system (EOS) that turned founder-led growth into systematized, accountable execution.
- Created a workforce-development talent pipeline across ~12 partner organizations that neutralized the industry’s talent shortage and opened career pathways in underserved communities.
- Landed the company on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing U.S. companies.
- Remodeled the 20,000 sq ft headquarters from the studs and turned around the call center.
- Built the operating maturity that made the company acquirable — culminating in the sale of Everywhere Wireless to MC Partners and, later, the recapitalization of the Zentro platform by Greystar Infrastructure.
The pattern
The flashy part of a deal is the deal. The part that actually creates the value is everything that happens before — the operating system installed, the people machine built, the company turned from a founder’s vision into an institution that runs without him in the room. That’s the seat I take. By the time there’s something worth acquiring, the real work is already done. Fix, grow, systematize, exit.