Case Studies: Four Engagements, Real Numbers

Case study 1

Eight Weeks to a Board-Approved Roadmap

Role: Fractional CTO of the technology product division of a PE-backed $8B+ healthcare distribution business. Engaged by the sponsor’s operating partner.

$0Incremental sponsor capitalrequired for the board-approved plan

8 wksEngagement to board readout

$5.6MNew ARR, bookedfive new clients, Supply Chain Intelligence Platform

41%Platform unit cost reductionrealized through architecture optimization

A board-approved, self-funded roadmap in eight weeks.

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The setup: The sponsor’s operating partner brought me in to answer one question: how do we drive quantifiable value for customers, at scale? The mandate was to evaluate the customer-facing platform portfolio and unify fragmented AI and data initiatives into a coherent roadmap.
The challenge: A mature, profitable, badly under-invested flagship product alongside nascent analytics and cost-savings platforms meant to defend a multi-billion-dollar core distribution business. The new platform had zero customers. There was no product-line P&L, no NPS or CSAT instrumentation, and no structured product management practice. Ambition without evidence.
The approach: In eight weeks I built an evidence-grade fact base: seven enterprise client interviews, five competitor benchmarks, the company’s first product-line P&L, component-level architecture analysis, and unit-economics models for every platform. The board readout delivered a staged investment plan, step by step with checkpoints, rather than one large upfront ask.
The result: Sponsor and management aligned on a de-risked, self-funded path from fragmented platforms to a durable strategic asset.

Eight weeks, five workstreams, one readout

Staged investment · stop at any checkpoint and still be ahead

$38M

five-year operating earnings in the board-approved plan. This is a forward plan, not a result.

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Case study 2

From Cost Center to an $11M Revenue Line

Role: CIO & CTO, a healthcare services company — with customer experience (CXO) responsibilities; led the CX function.

$11MAnnual revenue, 2024tech product line · from a $900K services business (2018) and $6.3M (2022)

60%Gross marginonboarding, new platform · up from 23%

33%Operating gross marginimprovement

7 → 100+Clients onboardedin four years

A technology group billing time and materials became a product business with its own P&L.

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18,000+Client reps signed up

30%Faster client onboarding

The setup: The company grew through back-to-back acquisitions and inherited a portfolio of redundant, often distressed technology assets. Each client got bespoke code. A time-and-materials model starved the platforms of investment and steadily eroded client satisfaction. Technology was busy, expensive, and going nowhere.
The dual mandate: I held both the CIO and CTO seat — IT strategy, cybersecurity and business continuity on one side, P&L responsibility for IT revenue on the other. One portfolio generating services revenue today, one building product revenue for tomorrow.
What we did: Moved the business from services to products on a micro-services architecture that made services reusable across clients instead of rebuilt per client. Stood up a dedicated product management department, a function that had never existed, and built a value-based tiered pricing model to replace effort-based billing. The product team worked directly with Commercial Development and client user groups, so enhancements were chosen by the people using them rather than by whoever asked loudest.
The result: Clients responded to the user experience, the intuitiveness and the performance. It opened a materially higher-margin revenue stream and turned the technology organization from a cost the business tolerated into a product the business sold.
Recognition: CIO of the Year, Philadelphia SIM (2020) · Philadelphia ORBIE CIO of the Year (2023).

Tech revenue ($M): $900K services business (2018) → $11M product line (2024), with onboarding gross margin

Abstract, not a real architecture diagram

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Case study 3

Two Startups. One Exit. A Higher Multiple.

Role: CIO & CTO, a healthcare services company — with customer experience (CXO) responsibilities; led the CX function.

51%Of EBITDAfrom the two new units, under three years

46%Of revenuesame two units, same window

1 → 3Business lines at exitfrom one at the previous sale. The second sale priced higher.

25+Enterprise clientsacross all three business units

Two businesses built from nothing after a private equity investment — both taken through the exit.

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“The shortest path from a patient to their first therapy.”

LaunchPivot / buildScaleExit Custom Pharmacy Solutions Specialty pharmacy, high-touch clinical services Pivot to specialty-lite, free goods, patient assistance Custom patient-experience platform, portals, analytics Both units part of the exit · three business lines, from one Direct-to-Consumer 3PL Opening created by pharmacy growth Direct manufacturer-to-customer channel Micro-services wrapper: serialization, chargebacks, predictive analytics

The setup: Following a private equity acquisition, the company launched two startups in succession, both organized around one idea: the shortest path from a patient to their first therapy, enabled by technology.
Startup 1 — Custom Pharmacy Solutions: Launched as a specialty pharmacy with high-touch clinical services. The market told us otherwise and we pivoted toward specialty-lite products and free goods services, including Patient Assistance and Product Replacement programs. We abandoned the off-the-shelf application stack and built a flexible, patient-experience-led custom solution that engaged patients well before the prescription stage. With patient and provider portals plus deep analytics, the business became an industry leader in Patient Assistance programs.
Startup 2 — Direct-to-Consumer 3PL: Pharmacy growth created the opening: a direct channel from manufacturers to customers, bypassing traditional distribution. Beyond standard ERP, WMS and TMS integration, a micro-services wrapper gave us flexibility nobody else had, and became the foundation for product serialization, chargeback solutions and predictive analytics. All built and launched at unusual speed.

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Case study 4

Five Companies, Three Countries, One Platform

Role: VP & CIO, a global pharmaceutical group

5Businesses

10,000+Users

$1BRevenue supported

5 yrsTo get there

Five acquired companies, five business models, one compliant platform — supporting $1B in revenue within five years.

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This one is larger than the companies I work with now. It is here because the problem is the same one every roll-up eventually has, and because it is the reason I am comfortable walking into a business assembled from five acquisitions and being asked to make one platform out of it.

The setup: The company, an India-based chemicals and life sciences group, moved into pharma by acquiring five companies across the US, Canada and India. I was their first North American employee, initially as the VP and CIO for North America, and later CIO of the entire group. The mandate: build an industry-specific technology platform to integrate all five operations, for efficiency, compliance and customer experience.
Cross-functional teams: Built a global IT organization from nothing — assessing internal talent, making targeted external hires, forming cross-functional teams from each acquired company, and establishing a governance structure that included the CEOs, CFOs and Quality and Operations heads.
Global governance, local differentiation: The temptation was a single monolithic solution. Instead the platform enforced global architectural standards while preserving each company’s competitive differentiation: common designs for Finance and HR, bespoke solutions for each go-to-market strategy. Standardize what makes you the same. Protect what makes you different.
The result: A scalable global ERP, CRM and BI platform serving 10,000+ users and supporting $1B in revenue within five years, on an FDA 21 CFR Part 11-compliant enterprise architecture. It homogenized operational and quality procedures, delivered consolidated visibility across the group, and let the corporate organization keep executing an aggressive inorganic growth strategy.

Global governance, local differentiation

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Four engagements. Real numbers.

Eight Weeks to a Board-Approved Roadmap

From Cost Center to an $11M Revenue Line

Two Startups. One Exit. A Higher Multiple.

Five Companies, Three Countries, One Platform