Founding-team dispute
5 months · 3 principals + 1 board observer
The 50-50 split that aged into a deadlock by year four.
- The room
- Two co-founders, equal equity, one chairman of the board (early investor with limited operating history). Mid-eight-figure annual revenue. The split had felt fair at incorporation. By year four, one founder was scaling into the operating role; the other had drifted toward external capital relationships. Decisions were dividing along that axis quietly for three quarters before the board surfaced it.
- The structural read
- The 50-50 was not the problem. The structural problem was that no decision-tiebreak mechanism had been written into the operating agreement. Every year-four decision was effectively a negotiation rather than a decision, and the room had adapted to that by avoiding decisions whenever possible.
- The work
- Five months. Twice-monthly meetings with the principals and board observer. The first eight weeks surfaced and named the avoidance pattern. The middle eight weeks rewrote the operating agreement decision-rights, with mediation between the two founders. The last four weeks confirmed the new structure with the board and the legal team.
- The close
- The operating agreement was rewritten. Both founders stayed. The decision velocity changed within three months of the close. Whether the structure holds at year ten is a different question; what was on the desk at year four closed.
Industry, geography, revenue band, and ownership specifics altered. The structural pattern is intact. No client identification possible.
Governance transition
4 months · Board chair + 5 members
The board that had grown around a founder who was no longer the operator.
- The room
- Founder-chairman, six board seats, growth-stage company, founder had transitioned out of the CEO role two years earlier into a chairman seat with operational reach. The succeeding CEO had a board that still defaulted to the founder on substantive questions. The CEO was carrying the operational accountability without the structural authority.
- The structural read
- The board composition reflected the founder-CEO era, not the current era. Three board seats were people who had been hired to advise the founder, not the company. The structure was working against the new CEO without anyone in the room having designed it that way.
- The work
- Four months. On-site monthly board meetings plus interim sessions with the CEO and chairman. Two board seats rolled off through pre-arranged staggered terms. One seat was actively transitioned with the original director's full participation. New board composition was selected against the current operating reality.
- The close
- The CEO had a board with the operating authority and structural composition that matched the role. The founder-chairman moved into a more formal chairman role with explicit boundaries. The transition closed without departures from the operating team.
Industry, growth stage, company size, and tenure specifics altered. The pattern is intact.
Ownership restructure
6 months · 3 family principals + outside trustee
The family business where the next generation had different ideas about the next decade.
- The room
- Family-owned business, second-generation, three siblings each holding equal economic interest. Parent generation had stepped back two years prior. One sibling was running operations, one was on the board with limited operational involvement, one had moved into a non-operating role. Long-term capital decisions were producing increasing friction across the three. An outside trustee was sitting on the family trust.
- The structural read
- The economic interest was equal but the operating reality was not. The structural question was whether the ownership architecture should follow operating contribution, parent-generation intent, or family equality. None of the three answers had been chosen consciously. The drift was filling the gap.
- The work
- Six months. Monthly sessions in person, all three principals plus the trustee. The first quarter surfaced what each sibling actually wanted from the next decade, with the structural question (operating, capital, ownership) separated from the family question (parent intent, identity, long-term cohesion). The second quarter built the ownership and governance structure that matched the answers from the first.
- The close
- The ownership architecture was restructured into a tiered economic-and-voting framework. One sibling moved fully out of operating; one took a defined operating role with corresponding governance authority; one stayed on the board. The trust was amended in accordance with the new structure. The family conversation was not resolved (it rarely is), but the operating company stopped paying for it.
Industry, region, asset class, and family configuration altered. The structural pattern is intact.
Cross-border board renewal
3 months · CEO + 4 board members across 3 jurisdictions
The board that had been assembled in jurisdiction A and was now operating in jurisdiction B.
- The room
- Mid-size technology company, founded in one country, expanded operations into a second, then absorbed an acquisition that placed substantial activity in a third. Board had been assembled at the founding-jurisdiction stage. Three board members had no operating experience in the second or third jurisdictions. Decisions were being read through the wrong jurisdictional lens.
- The structural read
- The board could not advise on what it could not see. Each board member was capable, but the room was not constructed for the operating reality. The structural question was not "who is on the board" but "what jurisdictional and functional coverage does the operating reality require."
- The work
- Three months. Two on-site board meetings (one per primary jurisdiction), monthly working sessions with the CEO and chairman in between. The work named the coverage gaps explicitly. Three new board candidates were identified, vetted, and onboarded across two scheduled meetings. Two existing board members took on chair-of-committee roles aligned with their jurisdictional expertise.
- The close
- The board composition matched the operating reality. The CEO had structural reads on each jurisdiction at the board level. The first cross-jurisdiction decision after the renewal closed in four weeks instead of the eight to twelve that had been the pattern previously.
Industry, jurisdictions, transaction structure, and board specifics altered. The pattern is intact.
