01
I start with the process, because that is where the people are being failed.
A team buried in work will tell you it has no time to fix the process, and that is when fixing it matters most.
Brandon Hall
Operations Executive | Financial Services
I step into high-volume operations that need order, and I build the process and the leadership layer that makes the performance hold.
More than 20 years in operations leadership. Most recently a 125-person production and client operations organization on a $9 million budget. Based in Dallas-Fort Worth, open to remote.
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What I do
Operations gets handed the messy problems.
A process nobody has documented. A team that has lost its leaders. A number that has been red for a year and a half. Volume that grew faster than the structure underneath it.
I have fixed them as a consultant leading transformation for banks, insurers, and lenders, and as the executive accountable for the result. The consulting years taught me the method. The operating years taught me what it costs to make it stick.
I do not accept a process just because it is the way the industry has always run it. If we put good people in a bad process, all we do is burn out the good people.
Leadership
How I lead.
02
I build agreement before I build the solution.
I have carried changes through organizations where a lot of people did not want them. What made that possible was a target everyone knew and could talk about openly, and leaders inside the business who owned the outcome with me, not just inherited it. I want my team to push back on an idea and find the weak points so we can improve it together.
03
I expect leaders to be complete.
A manager who is excellent with people still has to understand the process they are leading. A manager who is excellent analytically still has to lead and engage the people. I hold a high bar on both, and I invest in getting people there.
04
I lead with transparency.
Problems get fixed when they are said out loud, so I name them. I do not soften the message or steer people toward a conclusion. I share credit, I handle people's mistakes privately, and I do not feed drama, because it becomes gossip and it costs you the culture.
Day one through day sixty
The first sixty days.
This is how I walk into an operation I have never seen before.
- 1
Week one
Meet the people.
Every direct report, and a short session with everyone else. The goal is to put a face with a name and give people some context on who I am. I am not prescribing anything yet.
- 2
Week two
Leaders present their own teams and processes.
How well a leader explains what they run, and how well they prepared to explain it, is my first real read on capability.
- 3
Week three
Watch the work, with the people who do it.
Unfiltered, at the desk. In the same week I ask for the data on productivity, service, quality, and cost. Whether an organization can produce that in one place tells me how mature the operation is before I read a single number.
- 4
Week four
Talk to the customer.
By now I know who does the work, who the real leaders are, how the process runs, and how it performs. The customer tells me what they expect and whether they are getting it.
- 6
Week six
An honest assessment with the team.
Where we are, where we are heading, what has to change, and what we are going to do about it.
- 8
Weeks seven and eight
First changes in motion.
The changes the team agreed to start moving, with owners, targets, and a way to measure them.
Track record
Selected results.
2024 to 2026
Informative Research
Led a 125-person production and client operations organization serving mortgage lenders, on a $9 million operating budget.
- Supplements completed within two days rose from below 70% to over 90%
- Escalations and rework cut in half within six months
- 50 employees moved into higher-value roles through a career progression framework built from scratch
- Staffing models built to support 25% growth in six months
- Client satisfaction up 22% after a customer feedback program went into production
2022 to 2023
Capital One
Recruited to build a new process management function for commercial bank operations from the ground up.
- Built the process management function from nothing, growing it to five people documenting, measuring, and improving operations processes
- Led a 25-person organization through four managers
- Represented operations in the response to a commercial bank Matter Requiring Attention, formulating the operations response and coordinating it across departments that did not report to me
- Subject matter expert for commercial bank operations in the LIBOR transition
2015 to 2016
The Highland Group
Led both phases of a 12-month transformation of a commercial bank's business banking credit process, directing a 70-person joint team across seven workstreams.
- Non-complex loan processing cut from 15 to 20 days down to 3
- Handoffs reduced 82%, from 45 to 8
- 200 employees trained
- 92% of stakeholders agreed the project was focused on the right issues
- $10.1 million business case
Experience
Where I have worked.
Financial services, financial data, mortgage lending, insurance, and healthcare. Roughly half my career has been in operations leadership and roughly half leading transformation as a consultant, which is why I get my bearings fast in a new operation.
Informative Research (Stewart Title)
PRO Consulting
Capital One
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas City
Viracor Eurofins
The Highland Group
The Lab Consulting
Consulting clients have included banks, card issuers, insurers, retirement providers, and energy companies.
On operations and AI
AI is an operations tool. The question is where it belongs.
By day 30 in a new operation I want four questions answered. Those answers show me where AI can go in immediately and where it has to sit on a roadmap behind other work.
At Informative Research, that meant an AI-enabled knowledge base and agent-side chat that put the right answer on the screen at the moment of need. Average handle time dropped nearly 10% within 90 days.
I am not interested in AI as a way to cut headcount. I am interested in building AI into processes so the customer experience improves and the people can spend their time on higher value work. When a model fails, the accountability sits exactly where it would if a person or a team had failed. It sits with me.
What I am looking for
A role with real ownership of the operation.
Director, Vice President, or Senior Vice President level operations leadership in financial services, fintech, financial data, mortgage, or insurance.
I do my best work in companies whose overall operation runs roughly 200 to 1,000 people, with multiple layers of leadership and something in motion: new leadership, new technology, a process maturity problem, or growth that has outrun the structure.
What I need from the leader I report to is engagement and room to lead. I want a boss who will argue an idea with me and then let me own the outcome.
- Level
- Director, VP, SVP
- Industries
- Financial services, fintech, financial data, mortgage, insurance
- Operation size
- Roughly 200 to 1,000 people
- Location
- Dallas-Fort Worth or fully remote
Personal
Outside of work.
I live in Flower Mound, Texas, with my wife. We have eight children, six still at home, and a grandchild. Most of what I do outside work happens outdoors or in the garage: camping, hiking, running, lifting, and whatever DIY project is currently half finished. On weekends I'm the hobby cook, and I have coached youth sports since 2012.
Contact
If your operation needs to get somewhere it is not today, let's talk.
Location
Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas