Transforming an EnergyTech Scale-Up from Operational Loss to Sustainable, Scalable Growth in 24 Months

Overview

A high-growth EnergyTech scale-up was experiencing persistent operating losses despite strong market demand, advanced technology, and international expansion potential. Fragmented operations, unclear accountability, revenue leakage, and inefficient resource allocation were preventing the business from protecting or growing EBITDA.

Using my Operating-Model Acceleration Framework™ and proprietary ValueLift™ Enterprise Performance Model, I designed and led a 24-month enterprise transformation that rebuilt the operating model, stabilised financial risk, aligned culture and teams, and created a clear pathway to EBITDA-positive, scalable growth.

The Challenge

• Fragmented operations with no unified model, Product function, or compliance oversight

• Revenue leakage and stalled commercial growth, including “abandoned revenue” and unrealised upsell opportunities

• Limited governance, forecasting, and reporting, creating financial and regulatory risk

• Siloed teams, misaligned leadership, and inefficient decision-making

The Approach

1. Value Intelligence Layer™ (Months 1–3)

• Diagnosed enterprise-wide operational and commercial gaps

• Mapped 40% of potential revenue trapped in cross-functional gaps

• Identified 25% of delivery work untracked, creating audit and financial risk

2. Strategic Operating Model Redesign™ (Months 4–12)

• Created two focused business units and a new Product function

• Introduced Compliance & Audit, cross-functional operating cadence, and clear accountability frameworks

• Rebuilt vision, mission, values, and culture using ValueLift™ principles

3. Intelligent Systems & Automation Integration™ (Months 10–18)

• Deployed work-tracking, utilisation tools, automated reporting, and executive dashboards

• Built a scalable operational backbone capable of supporting growth without proportional headcount increases

4. Growth Activation Engine™ (Months 16–24)

• Repaired Sales–Tech handoffs, activated dormant accounts, and standardised pricing and delivery

• Expanded into Japan, Canada, and North America while establishing the UK as a global centre of excellence

• Aligned leadership on metrics, cadence, and performance culture using ValueLift™

Transformation Highlights (Metrics-Focused)

• Recovered 40% of trapped revenue by capturing previously abandoned opportunities

• Increased delivery visibility by 25% through structured tracking and operational dashboards

• Reduced operating inefficiencies by 15–20% via workflow standardisation and role realignment

• Established a scalable global operating model across UK, Japan, Canada, and North America with Product, Compliance, and cross-functional alignment

Outcome

Over 24 months, the organisation moved from financial instability and operational chaos → to a structured, accountable, scalable business with a clear pathway to EBITDA positivity, profitable growth, and international expansion.

The ValueLift™ Enterprise Performance Model ensured that operational improvements translated into measurable enterprise value while aligning culture, breaking silos, and elevating brand identity.

Overview

I designed and led the end-to-end delivery of a hybrid-cloud strategy for five business-critical applications within the Rates division. The transformation formed a core part of the bank’s Rates Digitisation Initiative, designed to improve performance, achieve ultra-low latency, reduce operational risk, and strengthen the organisation’s competitive ranking on Tradeweb and Bloomberg.

The programme modernised the entire ecosystem across cloud, colocation, and strategic data centres, onboarded a new vendor product (Beacon), and delivered significant resilience, compliance readiness, and scalability — generating £35m in cost savings by exiting the legacy data centre.

Challenge

The existing infrastructure estate supporting the five applications was:

• Fragmented, ageing, and rapidly expanding (35+ servers and growing).

• Experiencing performance bottlenecks and architectural limitations.

• Required full transaction retention for audit and compliance.

• Hosted in locations too far from the exchange, causing latency disadvantages.

• Incurring rising data centre costs with limited options for modernisation.

• Not designed to support the organisation’s growth ambitions or desired Tradeweb/Bloomberg ranking improvement.

• Needed alignment across demanding stakeholders: Traders, Quant Developers, Infrastructure, Sourcing, Compliance, Audit, Enterprise Architects, and Governance teams.

A strategic infrastructure and operating model overhaul was required.

Action

1. Hybrid Cloud Strategy & Architecture

I designed and led the end-to-end delivery of a hybrid-cloud strategy that optimised each product based on performance, regulatory, and latency requirements.
This included:

• Migrating one product to Oracle Cloud (OCP) for scalability and modern cloud services.

• Moving the remaining products’ application servers to a colocation data centre for ultra-low latency.

• Migrating database servers into a strategic data centre, improving resilience and governance.

• Establishing both Primary and Disaster Recovery data centres aligned with PRA requirements.

• Engaged all key stakeholders day-to-day, ensuring alignment between Traders, Quant Developers, Infrastructure, Sourcing, Compliance, Audit, Enterprise Architects, and Governance via the PCF framework.

2. New Vendor Product Integration (Beacon)

• Led technical onboarding of Beacon to modernise pricing, risk, and analytics workflows.

• Streamlined integration across all five applications with cross-functional teams.

3. Infrastructure Simplification & Modernisation

• Reduced the server estate by over 50% through consolidation, refactoring, and cloud adoption.

• Standardised infrastructure patterns across cloud, colocation, and strategic DCs.

• Implemented modern observability, access control, deployment automation, and failover standards.

• Coordinated multiple stakeholder groups to approve designs, migrations, and operational standards via PCF governance.

4. Regulatory & Compliance Leadership

• Created PRA submission packs from scratch for:

  • New product onboarding

  • Infrastructure modernisation

  • Data-movement and operational resilience controls

• Embedded governance and risk assurance via the Your Change framework.

5. Programme & Stakeholder Leadership

• Directed cross-functional teams across infrastructure, applications, cloud, security, and architecture.

• Delivered the programme in under 24 months, meeting business, regulatory, and market timing needs.

• Maintained daily engagement with demanding stakeholders, balancing technical delivery, risk, and business objectives.

• Ensured all change, approvals, and controls followed PCF governance, providing a clear audit trail.

Results

Strategic Impact

• £35 million cost savings via legacy data centre exit.

• Strengthened the organisation’s competitive positioning on Tradeweb and Bloomberg.

• Delivered a resilient, latency-optimised ecosystem supporting future growth.

Performance & Efficiency

• Infrastructure footprint reduced by over 50%.

• Achieved ultra-low latency for critical trading applications, being an early adopter and carving out the path for FX applications to follow.

• Simplified technology estate for long-term scalability.

Resilience & Compliance

• Fully Primary + DR data centre capability delivered.

• Audit-ready PRA compliance packs submitted.

• Strengthened operational resilience, security, and governance across all stakeholder groups.

Delivery Excellence

• Transformation delivered in record 24 months.

• Beacon product successfully integrated, modernising pricing, risk, and analytics workflows.

• Established a sustainable, efficient, and compliant hybrid-cloud infrastructure which has never been led by a team sitting in markets platform outside bank’s CIO group.

Context / Industry:
A large enterprise sought to transform its operating model to achieve scalable, investor-grade efficiency across multiple business units.

Challenge:
Existing structures and processes created inefficiencies, misaligned resources, and hindered cross-functional collaboration. Leadership needed a framework to align people, processes, and technology for sustained performance.

Action:

• Conducted a comprehensive operating model assessment to identify inefficiencies and misalignment.

• Designed and implemented a proprietary Operating-Model Acceleration framework, aligning teams, governance, and resources.

• Facilitated executive workshops to embed accountability and adoption.

• Introduced continuous performance tracking and KPIs to measure scalability and efficiency.

Results / Outcomes:

• Delivered 30–40% operational efficiency gains, enabling reallocation of resources to growth initiatives.

• Increased cross-functional collaboration, accelerating decision-making.

• Established investor-ready operating models, creating a foundation for enterprise-scale growth.

Context / Industry:
A start up company required advanced analytics to unlock growth and optimise performance across multiple units.

Challenge:
Fragmented data and inconsistent reporting hindered identification of value creation opportunities and growth levers.

Action:

• Built a centralised analytics platform, integrating data across operations and finance.

• Applied advanced, predictive analytics to uncover revenue growth, cost optimization, and margin improvement opportunities.

• Delivered executive-ready performance dashboards and insights for board and investor decision-making.

• Trained leadership teams to leverage insights for strategic, data-driven interventions.

Results / Outcomes:

• Enabled 15–20% EBITDA improvement through targeted operational and commercial initiatives.

• Accelerated decision cycles with real-time, actionable insights.

• Established a data-driven growth culture, positioning the portfolio company for sustainable expansion.

Context / Industry:
A global enterprise sought to enhance executive effectiveness and accelerate strategic outcomes across divisions.

Challenge:
Executive teams lacked structured mechanisms to align strategy, execution, and accountability, limiting the organisation’s ability to scale and drive transformational results.

Action:

• Delivered customised leadership enablement programs focused on collaboration, decision-making, and growth execution.

• Provided actionable transformation playbooks for executives to drive operational and commercial impact.

• Facilitated cross-functional workshops to embed strategic alignment and governance.

Results / Outcomes:

• Enabled executive teams to deliver measurable strategic outcomes across multiple initiatives.

• Improved decision speed and alignment, accelerating time-to-value.

• Strengthened organisational capability, building a foundation for ongoing enterprise transformation.

Context / Industry:
A mid-to-large enterprise sought rapid interventions to unlock business value and maximize sustainable financial returns.

Challenge:
The organisation faced urgent operational and strategic challenges, limiting revenue growth, profitability, and scalability.

Action:

• Conducted rapid diagnostics to identify high-impact opportunities for intervention.

• Implemented short-cycle, high-leverage initiatives targeting revenue growth, efficiency, and customer experience.

• Delivered board-level reporting and investor-ready outcomes to support executive decision-making.

Results / Outcomes:

• Delivered measurable business value within 90 days, accelerating growth initiatives.

• Increased revenue and profitability through targeted operational and commercial interventions.

• Created a repeatable framework for rapid enterprise value creation.