Build learning organisations
I love to learn. And I have been privileged to work with smart and driven people from all over the world. By applying analytical rigour, a openness to experiment and share mistakes, I have learned to faciliate and promote shared learning.
“Do the best that you can until you know better, then when you know better, do better.” - Maya Angelou
Situation
Danish P2P education business Mentor Denmark asked me to expand its business into Swedish as its country manager.
As in Denmark, the Swedish government offered generous subsidies covering half the cost but unlike Denmark Sweden had many established players operating in all major cities over many years.
Task
My research showed a market opportunity in major Swedish cities.
In preparation for the school start in 3 months:
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Set up business
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Recruit mentors
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Localize content including website, social media, marketing collateral, contracts, and backend
Action
Set up business: I registered the company and contracted accounting and legal firms.
Recruit mentors: I generated applications through FB advertisements, and led telephone and in-person interviews and assessments through my own recruitment processes.
Localize content: I built the Swedish website and localized all marketing material.
Result
After 3 months operations the new Swedish government announced it would terminate the subsidy. This made me sell my share of the business and hand it over to Mentor Danmark.
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Recruited 20 mentors from a candidate pool of 108 applications, 68 telephone interviews and 26 in-person interviews and tests.
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Incorporated company Mentor Sweden.
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Contracted accounting firm.
Case #3
International Expansion
Country Manager
Launched Swedish operations of Danish peer-to-peer education business Mentor Denmark. Recruited 20 mentors in 1 month and sold the business after 3 months.
Situation
Our engineering team used software generated line charts with average temperatures to describe the performance of our experimental laser system.
This presented challenges to:
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Diagnose errors
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Express quality with precision
Task
I tasked myself to build an diagnosis tool in Excel to present the temperature over time by channel numerically and graphically, using data captured by the thermal camera at 57 Hz.
Action
Inputs: Built sheet for input data with time series temperature readings.
Setup: Built sheet to set parameters like start and end times, target temperatures, temperature tolerances, fraction of time classified as beginning, middle, end.
Output: Built histograms and line charts showing % temperature on target overall and by channel, generated automatically.
Result
We could express the experiment results precisely, identify and adjust channels with errors, formulate and test hypotheses of how to improve.
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Improvement in output quality 70%.
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Reduction in test times 85%.
Case #4
R&D Improvement
CIO
I created a diagnostic tool with excel to automatically analyze our multi-channel array laser system's experimental test results from its thermal camera readings. It presents histograms and line graphs showing temperature over time and by channel helping to improve our output quality 70% and reduce test times 85%.
Situation
German investor sent me to support underperforming Colombian coupon business Notelapierdas to grow its revenues as a strategic advisor to the CEO.
I discovered significant team and leadership challenges:
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poor competence
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poor integrity
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low ambition
Task
After sharing observations with investor I was tasked to replace the CEO.
This was motivated by the following:
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Fluent Spanish
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Deep knowledge of the team and situation
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Experience growing multiple coupon businesses
Action
Team restructuring: I kept 1 out of 19 FTEs. My HR manager. We hired a management team who helped to grow the new team up to 42 FTEs.
Platform re-design: I commissioned a team in Argentina to rebuild our magento site with the help of a local designer.
Onboarding and training: I developed an effective recruitment and training program to quickly make new hires productive. New sales hires made appointments on day 1 and in-person meetings on day 2.
Result
Website was ready and new team in place after 3 months. The market became increasingly crowded. Our performance peaked 4 moths later.
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Monthly revenues grew 416%.
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Montly operating costs decreased 38%.
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Average commissions increased from 32 pp. from 24% to 56%.
Case #1
Turnaround
CEO
Took over underperforming Colombian coupon business. In 7 months rebuilt the site and grew the team from 19 to 42 FTEs. Grew revenues 4x, cut costs almost 40%.
Situation
Invited to join Hungarian daily deal coupon business KuponVilag as COO working with my business partner and co-founder at Groupon Belgium.
On my first day I discovered deal flow challenges:
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Manual and error prone administrative practices
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Friction between sales and operation teams
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0 deals approved for publication
Task
I tasked myself to drive revenue by improving the operations- and sales teams processes, team competence, communication, and collaboration.
Short term: Work with operations to improve the after-sales contract management practices.
Medium term: Work with sales team to improve volume of great deals.
Action
Immediate actions: Reviewed inventory, asked sales team to republish partners best selling deals, reduced publication volume from 5 to 3.
Medium term actions:
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Set up Salesforce CRM and a pre-sales team.
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Trained sales team on deal negotiations and operations team on which deals to approve and how to optimize deal mix and publication timing from multivariate deal revenue analysis findings.
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Improved compensation structure, led weekly sales team training sessions and one-on-one meetings, shared sales performance daily.
Result
Short term: Secured deal supply for 7 days.
Medium term: Teams became happier, more productive and our performance improved.
Our results after 7-months:
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Monthly revenues grew 102%.
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Monthly internal revenues grew 81%.
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Average deal approval times reduced 80% from 10 to 2 days.
Case #2
Revenue Growth
COO
Joined Hungarian coupon business. In 7 months doubled revenues, grew internal revenue 81%, and reduced deal approval times 80% by implementing Salesforce CRM, sales team training, and improving compensation system.