BUSINESS DESIGN +
OPERATIONS PARTNERS
Welcome. We're Riser.
Leaders today are faced with exceptional challenges of running their business amidst a landscape ripe with disruption, rising costs, and uncertainty at every turn. This has sparked the demand for senior operational leaders to be at an all-time high, particularly for teams facing cost barriers. We founded Riser because we believe that senior operations capabilities should be accessible to all, irrespective of team size or growth stage.
With over 15 years of experience, we have witnessed firsthand the lasting impact of having specialized, proactive, and strategic operational guidance within leadership teams, particularly to support the unique needs of smaller and earlier-stage businesses.
By partnering with your teams in a fractional and strategic capacity, we provide dedicated, fully integrated, and specialized leadership capabilities without the hefty price tag.
We're not for everyone & we're okay with that.
Thrilled, actually.
Our Services
Fractional Operations Leadership + Business Design Consulting
We provide cost-effective partnership structures that enable specialized and dedicated senior leadership support across your entire team’s operations. We are embedded into your teams and support you through the development of your full operational assessment and prioritization, co-creation of your growth blueprint, strategic planning, and optimizing your processes, finances, systems, and teams.
Our expertise expands across all areas of operations and we customize our focus to cover all of your priority needs. Our specialized experience in planning and leading mergers and acquisitions, including full operational integrations also places us as a strategic partner for any teams looking to make moves.
Extended fractional services across HR, admin, finance, and accounting could also be available through our augmented support teams.
Strategic Product Consulting + Solution Design
We provide consulting services for product teams and SaaS partners who are looking to gain product and implementation insights, UX consulting, or ongoing partnerships built upon our extensive experience assessing, selecting, and implementing tools and systems within global businesses. We specialize in products and platforms related to team collaboration, CRM, workforce & resource management, HR, admin operations, project management, performance management, employee experience, learning & development, sustainability compliance, and procurement.
Structured as a fixed-fee or bespoke project scope, we will customize our approach based on your varied support needs.
Foresight Powered Business Transformation
We know the future isn’t something to predict—it’s something to shape. Riser Futures is the next evolution of Riser, designed for business leaders and change-makers ready to embed strategic foresight into their near and long-term strategy.
Building upon our strengths in strategic operations leadership and business design consulting, we embed foresight methodologies and future insights throughout our work to guide tangible operational shifts and outcomes across your business transformation.
Riser Futures helps you think bigger, plan smarter, and act decisively in a rapidly shifting world. We offer several approaches by combining foresight with execution, and support your teams by bridging the gap between insight-driven strategy and tangible operational transformation.
Shape your future potential with us.
How it Works
1. Free Consultation
Let's chat! We'd love to learn all about you, your teams, and where you're looking for support. We'll provide an overview of how we work, where we feel we can support you, and everything in between. Even if you aren't sure what you need, where we should start, or whether we're a good fit - that's ok, that's what these chats are for.
2. Partnership Assessment
After our initial consultation, we will propose a partnership structure that we feel best aligns to your needs, priorities, and provide you with a proposed approach, support summary, and initial pricing. We curate tailored partnership structures that best support you, your teams, and work around any unique constraints you may have.
3. Kick-Off & Next Steps
After we align on a path forward, we take care of the rest. We offer many flexible options for low-commitment partnership structures and collaborations that flex to your unique and evolving needs.
Our Areas of Expertise
We're a fully integrated fractional operations partner for agency leaders and product teams. We support teams across all areas of operations, but in more accessible, flexible, and affordable structures than your typical full-time hires. We offer holistic and strategic support that integrates across all areas of your business, or we can target our focus on your priority areas. Not too sure where your priority areas of focus are? That's ok - we got you.
Exec Operations Leadership
Finance & Revenue Operations
Strategic Business Design
Merger & Acquisition Planning
Change & Risk Management
Growth Strategy & Sales
Employee & Client Experience
Program Design & Project Pricing
Resourcing & Capacity Planning
Process Design & Optimization
Project Management & PMO
Contracting & Procurement
Recruitment & Staff Upskilling
Project Systems & Collaboration
Branding & Web Design
Our Client Experience
Our experience has been shaped by leading operations for today's leading agencies and designing partnerships for impactful clients.
Public Inc.
Idea Couture / Cognizant
Normative
Deluxe Media
Smartsheet
Netflix
Meta
Airbnb
Johnson & Johnson
Sephora
LCBO
Uniqlo
Campbells
Tiffany & Co
NBC Universal
Starbucks
TD Bank
Hudson's Bay
Novartis
UCB
Our Partnership Structures & Pricing
While it has been a growing trend across industries, we understand that not all businesses have brought a fractional leader into their teams before. We’re used to getting a lot of questions.
Fractional roles are by design - not permanent. They are commonly suited for teams looking for senior expertise but with flexible commitment terms, lower annual costs, and the ability to specialize and diversify their leadership capabilities over time.
I have been increasingly drawn to the growing need for fractional senior operations leadership - especially within smaller and earlier-stage businesses. Having a full suite of senior operations, admin, or HR professionals is not always an accessible or sustainable option for some teams. For those facing financial barriers to hire these permanent roles, founders and senior teams often take on these roles as a shared responsibility.
Throughout my career leading operations for agencies of varying sizes, I've consistently seen this approach lead to inefficient and reactive operations management, reduced visibility of risks, frustrating workflows, costly resourcing headaches, high levels of attrition, and cashflow-oriented decision making. Furthermore, these leadership teams find themselves stretched too thin and distracted from their main focus areas. In this model, nobody wins.
This is where fractional leadership strikes that needed balance - providing teams with more flexible and sustainable access to embed a suite of senior operational capabilities into their teams without the financial hurdle that comes with permanent full-time or salaried roles.
Dave Oliver - Founder & Principal