I build CEO Offices that sit between strategy and execution, and step in as an embedded Chief of Staff when decisions start to stall. The work focuses on decision flow, executive communication, and leadership capacity, not adding more process.

The Gap

A decision gets made. Everyone agrees. Then very little actually changes.

Work continues, but alignment thins out. Priorities blur. Strategic work slips behind urgent work. People compensate to keep things moving.

This work is about changing how decisions move through the system, before drift becomes permanent.

Who This Is For

Founders and CEOs who have outgrown founder-led operations.

The direction is clear. The team is capable. But momentum is slowing. Decisions stack up. Important work keeps getting deferred. Leadership and board processes take more effort than they should.

If this sounds familiar, the fix is not more effort. It is redesigning how work actually moves.

What a CEO Office Is

A CEO Office is not a layer or a title. It is leadership infrastructure.

It absorbs coordination load, maintains decision discipline, and protects leadership time for the decisions and external work that only they can do.

How the Work Shows Up

This work often shows up as embedded, fractional Chief of Staff support.

Sometimes that means stepping in to extend leadership bandwidth when pressure is high. Sometimes it means building and stabilising leadership systems so decisions stop defaulting to the CEO. Often, it is both.

The work is operational, cross-functional, and sits alongside the CEO and leadership team. The work is designed for the people, the stage, and the conditions, not applied as a template. This is execution, not advisory.

The Work in Practice

The work covers three areas.

• Leadership operations
  Decision frameworks, operating rhythms, planning cycles, and ownership structures that keep decisions moving without defaulting to the CEO.

• Executive communications
  Board materials for investors, internal communication that translates strategy into action, and external communication that aligns expectations across investors, media, and senior talent.

• Leadership capacity
  EA team development and embedded Chief of Staff support that shifts work from reactive coordination to anticipatory judgement, extending leadership bandwidth without creating dependency.

What I Have Built

At Babbel, I built and led the CEO Office as the company scaled from €100m to €300m towards IPO readiness.

The CEO Office absorbed complexity so leadership could focus on strategy, people, external relationships, and high-leverage decisions rather than constant troubleshooting.

This included:

• Decision frameworks and leadership rhythms that reduced escalation and stopped decisions defaulting back to the CEO

• Board processes and communication standards built to public-company expectations

• Executive communication infrastructure that translated strategy internally and aligned external expectations across investors, media, and senior hiring

• An Executive Assistant function redesigned to operate with shared context and judgement, not reactive coordination
  

Infrastructure that held through rapid headcount growth, remote work transition, and IPO readiness, adapting without increasing leadership load.