An operator in the leadership team, not an advisor outside it.
A consultant advises from the outside. A fractional COO is embedded in the leadership team with real authority over how the business runs. Run the Room is the second thing. We call it an embedded operations partnership, because that is what it is.
You have outgrown running it yourself. You are not ready to hire a full-time COO.
The companies that hire us for this usually look the same from the inside. The owner or founder is still the operating system. Decisions wait on them. Priorities shift mid-week and teams quietly stop trusting any priority. Recurring problems get solved by the same three people every time.
A full-time COO at this stage is expensive and often premature. Doing nothing is more expensive. Run the Room gives you senior operating leadership at the fraction of time the business actually needs, with a clear plan for what you own, what we own, and what your team owns by the time we leave.
What you get
- A standing seat in your leadership team and a weekly operating rhythm that runs whether or not you are in the room
- Ownership of the operating cadence: priorities, decisions, handoffs, and the meetings that move them
- Systems built with the people who have to live in them, not handed to them
- Reviews at 30, 60, and 90 days against a baseline captured before anything changed
- A direct, private line on what leadership is contributing to the constraint
Sized to how much operating leadership the business needs.
Every level is a six-month minimum with sixty days' notice. Real operating change does not happen in ninety days, and a shorter term sets us both up to fail.
Advisory
About two days a month
For the leadership team that can execute but needs a senior operator in the room for the decisions that matter. Standing check-ins, operating reviews, and a direct line between them.
Embedded
About one day a week
The most common fit. We own the operating rhythm, run the leadership cadence, build the systems, and stay close enough to catch the drift before it costs you a quarter.
Deep Embedded
About two days a week
For a business in the middle of significant change. We hold this at one client at a time, because at this depth it should feel like having a COO, not a consultant.
Most partnerships begin with a diagnostic.
It is hard to run a room you have not read. Most companies start with a Business Operations Diagnostic or the full 90-Day Run the Rooms Diagnostic, and move into Run the Room once we both know what actually needs to change.
If you already have findings from another source and need an operator to act on them, we can start here.
- Backfill a vacant role or hold direct reports unless it is written into the engagement
- Perform the operational work. We build the system for it.
- HR investigations, terminations, hiring, or compensation design
- Legal, financial, or compliance advice
- Select vendors, configure software, or migrate data
Let's find out if you need an operator or a diagnosis.
A 30-minute discovery call tells us both. If a fractional COO is not the right next step, we will say so and point you to what is.