Set the course. Stay the course.
Keel & Cadence builds lightweight operating systems that help growing companies turn strategy into revenue, retention, and margin results, so everyone knows what matters, who owns it, and how it’s tracking against the plan.
Your plan says 3x. Your operating system was built for 20 people.
Your team is working hard. Meetings are full and everything feels urgent. But growth isn’t keeping pace with the effort, and when the board asks what’s actually driving results, the answer is harder than it should be.
- Every priority is a top priority.So the few bets that drive growth get the same attention as everything else.
- Leaders agree in the meeting, then pull in different directions.Sales sells what product never committed to, and renewals pay the price.
- Decisions bottleneck with the founder/CEO.Deals, hires, and launches wait in line for one calendar.
- You’re tracking activity, not outcomes.Everyone is busy, and ARR is flat.
- The planning process that worked at 20 people breaks at 60.You doubled the team and shipped less.
These aren’t people problems. They’re operating system problems, and they’re fixable.
A steady keel. A reliable cadence. A strong tailwind.
Every growing company needs three things to execute well: a stable foundation that keeps it upright when conditions change, a rhythm that keeps everyone moving together, and the momentum to get there before the competition does.
The keel
Your operating foundation: clear priorities, measurable outcomes, defined ownership, and decision rights everyone understands.
The cadence
Your leadership rhythm: the planning cycles, reviews, and dashboards that turn good intentions into consistent delivery.
The tailwind
Your accelerant: AI built into the system itself, preparing reviews and keeping dashboards current, with every AI initiative managed like any other outcome.
We build all three, sized for your stage. No big-company bureaucracy, no process rollout that gets abandoned after a quarter. Just practical systems your team will actually use.
What accountability looks like on a Monday morning.
Accountability isn’t a pep talk. It’s a few simple mechanics that make ownership obvious and follow-through visible.
- One owner per outcome. Every goal and metric carries one leader’s name, not a team’s.
- Decision rights, set in advance. Who decides, who’s consulted, and who’s informed, so decisions stop waiting on the founder.
- A commitment log. Every action agreed in a review gets an owner and a date, and it opens the next meeting.
- A weekly scorecard. Owners report their own status, with clear rules for when something escalates.
- Honest quarterly scoring. Goals are graded at quarter end, and the share of commitments delivered is tracked over time.
We don’t blame people. We build the system that makes ownership obvious.
Weekly scorecard
Week 6 · Q1| Outcome | Owner | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Net new ARR | VP Sales | On track |
| Enterprise SSO launch | VP Product | At risk |
| Gross retention | VP Customer Success | On track |
| Engineering hiring plan | Head of People | Off track |
Commitment log
| Commitment | Owner · Due | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing test proposal | CFO · Thu | Done |
| Root cause on churned accounts | VP CS · Mon | Open |
| SSO recovery plan | VP Product · Wed | Open |
Illustrative example. Your scorecard is built around your own OKRs.
How we work together
Start with a Course Check, or a Planning Sprint if next year’s plan is due. From there, you choose how far to go. AI is built into every step.
Planning season
Planning Sprint
Turn next year’s strategy into a committed plan: growth targets, OKRs with named owners, budget and headcount aligned to priorities, and a Q1 operating cadence ready to run on day one.
Book a Planning Sprint-
Course Check
Find out where execution is breaking down and what it’s costing you. We assess how your company plans, prioritizes, decides, and measures, then deliver a clear gap analysis and a 90-day roadmap focused on what will make the biggest difference.
TailwindAn AI opportunity scan alongside the execution diagnostic.
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Course Set
We design and install your OKRs and KPIs, decision rights, leadership cadences, prioritization and resource-allocation processes, and dashboards that show real progress.
TailwindAI-assisted dashboards and automated review prep, built in from the start.
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Course Correct
We run your first cycle alongside you. Together we spot drift from the plan early, fold what the team learns back into the course, replan quickly, and adjust so every cycle runs sharper than the last.
Also available as a standalone reset after a funding round, leadership change, or acquisition.
TailwindOne or two AI pilots run as part of the quarter’s OKRs.
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Steady Course
An operating partner at your leadership table, without the full-time hire. We run reviews, keep priorities aligned, surface risks and dependencies early, and coach your team to own the system long-term.
TailwindAn AI-run operating cadence and ongoing pilot governance.
Tailwind: AI with a keel
Every AI pilot is an OKR with an owner and a baseline, reviewed in the same cadence as everything else, so AI becomes part of how you run the business, not a side experiment.
- Run the cadence on AI. Agents prepare weekly reviews, refresh dashboards, turn meeting notes into commitment-log entries, and flag slipping goals before the meeting.
- Find the value. Identify the AI use cases with the biggest payoff for revenue, customers, and margins.
- Check readiness. Assess your data, processes, tools, and people so pilots don’t stall.
- Prove it, then scale it. Run focused pilots against clear success measures, then put guardrails, responsible-use policies, and a review rhythm in place so results compound.
Where we help
Most engagements start at a turning point, when drifting off course suddenly gets expensive.
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Annual planning
Next year’s plan, owned and resourced.
Turn strategy into a committed plan with OKRs, budget alignment, and a Q1 cadence ready on day one.
Start with: Planning Sprint -
Sales and product alignment
Stop selling what product hasn’t committed to.
One intake and triage process for customer commitments, so every promise has an owner, a date, and a decision behind it.
Start with: Course Set -
Post-acquisition
The first 100 days, run on purpose.
Align portfolios, teams, and delivery processes after an acquisition without disrupting releases or customers.
Start with: Course Correct -
New executives
Plug new VPs into the system, not the chaos.
Give incoming leaders clear outcomes, decision rights, and a seat in the cadence from week one.
Start with: Course Check -
Regulated growth
Sell into health systems without slowing down.
Fold HIPAA and HITRUST readiness into your operating rhythm so compliance keeps pace with growth.
Start with: Course Check -
AI that pays off
AI pilots with owners and baselines.
Pick the AI bets that move revenue or margin, and run them through the same cadence as everything else.
Start with: Tailwind
Results you can see, not just feel.
Every engagement starts with a baseline, so you’ll know exactly what changed and what it was worth.
- BaselineThe Course Check captures how your company plans, decides, and executes today.
- MeasureThe same indicators are tracked every cycle, on the dashboards we build together.
- ReportYou get a clear before-and-after view at each milestone, tied to your OKRs.
Growth against plan
Progress on the revenue, retention, and margin targets your OKRs are built around: the numbers your board actually asks about.
Commitments kept
Share of leadership and customer-facing commitments delivered on time.
Execution rate
Share of key results achieved or on track, cycle over cycle.
Decision speed
Time from an issue being raised to a clear decision and a named owner.
Planning cycle time
How quickly strategy becomes a committed, owned quarterly plan.
Leadership time
Hours spent in status meetings and update prep, recovered for decisions that move the business.
And the comparison that matters most: senior operating leadership for a fraction of the cost of a full-time executive hire, without the search, the ramp-up, or the long-term commitment.
Built for companies at an inflection point
- Organizations scaling after a funding round, with a growth target to hit
- Companies crossing 50 employees and adding their VP-level leaders
- Founder-led businesses where every decision still runs through the top
- Leadership teams preparing for new investment or an acquisition
Seasoned at scale. Steered for growth.
Our operating systems weren’t designed in theory. They were built, tested, and matured inside Microsoft, Oracle, Nuance Communications, and high-growth SaaS companies, across global portfolios, regulated industries, and a successful acquisition.
That experience spans governance for large technology portfolios, customer success and technical operations, compliance programs such as SOX, HIPAA, and HITRUST, and the operating cadences that keep leadership teams aligned as they scale.
Keel & Cadence packages what works at scale into lightweight systems growing companies can adopt quickly, with practical AI, grounded in an MIT Applied Agentic AI program, running inside the operating system rather than beside it.
Know what matters. Own it. Measure it.
Start with a Course Check, or a Planning Sprint if next year’s plan is due, and see exactly where execution is costing you growth.