Fix the bottleneck that keeps eating your week.
I help founder-led agencies and service teams fix delivery, resourcing, scope, and ownership problems, in focused engagements, without hiring a full-time operations leader.
Best for 10–75 person agencies, studios, and service firms where the founder is still holding delivery together.
Problem
You’ve hit the operational breaking point
Your company is growing, which means more projects, more complexity, more moving parts. But your operations haven’t caught up, and you’re starting to see the cracks:
Ownership gap
Projects slip because nobody knows who owns what.
Retention risk
Your best people are drowning under impossible workloads.
External impact
Clients are frustrated by missed deadlines and unclear communication.
Reactive vs strategic
You’re stuck in reactive mode, firefighting instead of building.
Alignment issue
Technical and creative teams aren’t aligned on priorities or timelines.
You’re the bottleneck
Every decision runs through you because there’s no clear process or delegation framework.
If two or more of these are true, you don’t need more effort.
You need an operating system.
Value
How I work differently
Most operations consultants specialize in one lane.
I move between all three because growth-stage challenges don’t respect organizational boundaries.
Operator
Identifies operational breaking points before they hit. Builds infrastructure ahead of growth, not in response to crisis.
Strategist
Protects leadership bandwidth through disciplined prioritization. Helps you say no to good opportunities so you can say yes to the right ones.
Translator
Speaks creative, finance, and tech fluently. Bridges departmental gaps without diluting vision. Uses constraints to guide execution, not kill ideas.
Proof
What People Say
Kim’s role is to give our clients the confidence that they’re in good hands while managing the workloads of dozens of creative and technical specialists. It’s an impossible balancing act and yet Kim does it with a calm grace.
Scott Burton
CTO, SprintFWD
Kim handles stress very well and always stays level-headed, even in the most stressful of times. He provides psychological safety to his team and those he works with.
Annie Kwok, PMP, CSM
Technical Project Manager
Despite the fact that he consistently manages a workload greater than any one person should, I’ve never seen him rattled flustered or out of control. He has thrived in a position where many before him have crumbled or burned out.
Brett Beynon
SVP Brand & Marketing, Diversify
Ready to Talk?
No decks, just your current bottlenecks
Method
Start with one problem.
The expensive one.
Four ways to work together. Most people start with the first.
Operations Diagnostic
1-2 weeks
Find the real constraint and get a prioritized plan.
Delivery or Capacity Sprint
3-6 Weeks
Fix one operating problem. Implemented, not just recommended.
Operator Office Hours
Monthly
An experienced sounding board without another executive hire.
Fractional Operations Lead
3-6 Months, selective
Ongoing ownership when advice isn’t enough.
Services
How I help
Systems that scale without breaking
Your team can execute without constant firefighting. I build delivery frameworks, resource models, and operational rhythms that work at 30 people and still work at 60.
Team leadership that reduces turnover
Your best people stay and grow. I design hiring processes, onboarding systems, and coaching frameworks that build psychological safety and long-term retention.
Delivery that protects margins
Your projects stop bleeding budget. I implement SOW processes, communication frameworks, and resource planning that prevent scope creep and reduce client friction.
Me
About Kim
I’m wired for this.
From summer days as a kid keeping meticulous statistics for my Strat-o-Matic baseball team to the filterable Google Sheet organizing my record collection today, I’ve created systems to organize information and workstreams.
When we work together, I’m looking for what’s actually holding you back: where are handoffs breaking down? Which processes are bottlenecks versus just annoying? What’s a people problem versus a structure problem?
I work with leaders who don’t pretend to have all the answers. And that’s exactly why we work well together. I’ve spent 25 years in the rooms where things break, and I know the difference between a people problem, a process problem, and a leadership problem.
Location
Based in Long Beach CA, working with remote-first companies nationwide
Credentials
25+ years in digital agencies and startups
Certified Project Management Professional (PMP)
BA, SUNY Geneseo
Interests
Record collector, home cook, sports fan, retainer of trivia knowledge, karaoke regular, rabbit hole explorer, father of two
Let’s talk about your operations
If you’re scaling fast and your operations are struggling to keep up, if your team is maxed out, your projects feel chaotic, and you’re worried about retention, let’s have a conversation.
I take on a small number of engagements at a time, and most start with a two-week Operations Diagnostic before we scope anything bigger. That keeps things focused, for you and for me.
Or email me directly at kim@kimhowe.com