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You are most likely here because something is weighing on you — a decision, a board, a room on a fixed date — the kind you will live with long after the room clears. Someone thought an outside read, no stake in the room, might help it land.
Boards accelerated
Rooms moved forward
Board decisions now run at higher narrative speed and greater technical opacity — particularly around AI. Strengthen judgement without slowing the room.
Three doors, depending on the room you are in. If more than one feels true, start with the earliest decision in the chain. Clarity compounds.
A board, a fund, a holding – something you will live with long after the room clears.
From onboarding to endgame
Is the board producing decisions – or updates?
Onboarding, strategy days, evaluation, endgame – a board that leaves with decisions it will live with, not twelve themes. Aligning a room like that, across cultures and a few strong personalities, is its own craft.
Before it runs live
The board Q&A, the investor meeting, the panel – ready for the moment that gives no second take?
Rehearse the room and test the argument before it runs live. Founders have done it; so have Fortune 50 chief executives. The aim is not to script you but to pressure-test what you will actually face, so it holds when it counts.
Before you commit
Sure enough to commit – or sure enough to want it tested first?
An independent read on the decision that has to hold. In one Mayo Clinic study, a second read changed the diagnosis outright 21% of the time and refined it in a further 66%; only 12% confirmed the first call. Medicine is simply the field that measured it.
Mayo Clinic, Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice, 2017
When a holding has to move
The dip runs deep and the thesis is starting to bend – where is the holding on that curve?
Operating work that turns the trajectory – no equity, no board seat. The record behind it: 42 technology pilots across 39 start-ups, tested in real deployments, on time and on budget, at the Urbantech Accelerator. For every €1 of programme capital, €13 was committed alongside; eight of the 39 have since raised Series A or later, and four have been acquired.
A conference, a summit, an investor day, a programme for your members. The date is fixed, and the room has to land.
Before the room has to hold
A head of state on the stage, a private roundtable – or a thousand people at a conference. One fixed date. Who holds the room?
The guest list is yours – that part is done. The people in the room came for something meant to last, and the through-line has to hold in front of them. What makes it land is an independent hand: sharp questions, pace held, a room that does not drift and leaves having moved, not merely met. In English or Danish.
To check a date, write with the date, the room, and who will be in it.
With a partner, for its members
Your members are asked onto stages. Will the room hold when they get there?
Run with clusters and associations whose members take the stage – an afternoon, or two half days. A call with each participant before, live practice from more than one chair, footage within minutes, and a Fire Drill before the next real engagement. Built from panels that worked, practised until it holds.
A first company, a first board, a move you are weighing.
No charge
Not every useful conversation is a paid engagement.
The first Friday of the month, 11:00–14:00. Four slots, allocated rather than first come, and kept deliberately limited so that each one stays useful. One understanding comes with every slot: that you will do the same for someone else.
To ask for a slot, write with a line on who you last helped who could do nothing for you in return.
Not sure which room you are in? Someone you trust pointed you here – and they rarely do that lightly. Fifteen minutes over an espresso is a good place to start. My round; the address is below.
Yes – it is the Main Stage discipline: a narrative that holds, questions that land, pace held, a room that does not drift. In English or Danish. The work is selective rather than booked by the hour, so start by writing with the date – the address is below.
The date, the room and who will be in it, and what the session has to leave behind. A short bio ready for the programme is available on request.
Yes – when the session has a decision at its centre. Facilitation is the craft beneath all of the work. A board or leadership team working towards a decision is a Strategy Day; a summit, an investor day or a members’ programme is Main Stage. In English or Danish, and either way the fifteen-minute espresso is the place to start.
More likely the right one. The work is built for decisions meant to outlast the people who make them – which is the point of a mission held in trust. What matters is whether you carry decisions the board has to live with. Some of the sharpest sit in associations, foundations, non-profits and B Corps.
Each engagement starts at a floor – the smallest useful version of the work – and is then set against what the decision needs: the size of the board, the depth of preparation, the follow-through. Floors are benchmarked against published prices for comparable work.
Masterclasses are priced per seat, with the partner; Office Hours carries no charge. All fees are per engagement, excluding VAT, with travel at cost. Once the scope is agreed, the fee is fixed – if it needs to come down, the scope comes down with it.
Confidentiality comes first: nothing that identifies a client, a board or a room is shared without explicit agreement. Any potential conflict of interest is raised before the work begins. Beyond that, the work follows two published codes: the IAF Statement of Values and Code of Ethics for facilitation, and the IoD Code of Conduct for Directors for conduct in and around the boardroom.
Fifteen minutes on what is weighing on you. It is surprising how much two determined people can cover in a quarter of an hour – and by the end, you will know whether an outside read would help.
Not every useful conversation is a paid engagement. For founders at the start, and for anyone weighing a move, there is Office Hours: the first Friday of the month, a small number of slots, allocated rather than first come, and no charge. One understanding comes with each: that you will do the same for someone else. To ask for a slot, write – the address is below.
Something keeping you up? A deal moving faster than the years it commits you to. A room that cannot be got wrong. A holding that will not turn. A board leaning on one person. An exit with no plan. Or something else entirely.
Talk it through – fifteen minutes, over an espresso. My round.
Write to michael [at] operatingpartner.io with a line on what is weighing on you – and, if someone sent you, who.
Ecosystem Office Hours
Mondays 09:00-15:00
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