The case
“I need a COO yesterday.”
Daniel Osei started Fernhill in his kitchen. Eight years later it had sixty people, two warehouses and a founder who worked until midnight. He had a recruiter on retainer and a shortlist of three.
What we found
Daniel approved every purchase over €500, every hire, every price change and most of the marketing. For one week he wrote down each approval: 214 of them, about eleven hours. A COO would have taken over the signing, and Daniel would have started approving the COO.
He did not need a second pair of hands. He needed fewer things in his.
What we changed
We raised the purchase limit to €15,000 for his two senior managers and wrote down who decides hiring, pricing and spending, in one page each. Daniel kept the decisions only he could make: the brand, the big customers, the money.
What happened next
Daniel got eleven hours a week back. Six months later Fernhill hired a COO, to run the warehouses, not to protect Daniel’s inbox.
