Client stories
The work, in five stories
Five sectors. Five functions. Five different presenting problems.
The pattern underneath is the same: a leadership team that is capable, well resourced, and aligned on paper, but where something is driving slower delivery.
Stories below are anonymised where required by client confidentiality. The patterns and outcomes are real.
References available on request.
FTSE 350 FX Leader
01
Product & Engineering
The product roadmap that kept getting redone
"We went in with a roadmap nobody owned. We came out with one nobody questioned. The roadmap didn't change. We did."
Chief Product Officer, FTSE 350 FX Leader
The situation
A senior product team in a fast-growing division. Six leaders across product, engineering, design, commercial, and operations. Performing well, but the same roadmap kept being redone every quarter. A major platform decision had been on the agenda for nine months without resolution.
What got stuck
No prioritisation, despite that being the team's working hypothesis. Underneath, two senior leaders were optimising for different definitions of success: one for engineering quality, one for commercial velocity. The trade-off had never been surfaced cleanly enough to commit to.
What KIVA did
Two-day diagnostic with the leadership team, three working sessions over six weeks, 30-day embed. The intervention surfaced the underlying tension explicitly and helped the team make and hold a decision about which direction to optimise for.
What changed
The platform decision was made and stuck. The roadmap held through the next two quarterly reviews without restart.
GLOBAL PHARMACEUTICALS
02
Transformation
A transformation that wasn't moving
"Every workstream had its own version of 'done.' Turns out, so did we. KIVA was the first time anyone said that out loud.”
Chief Transformation Officer, Global Pharmaceuticals
The situation
A multi-year transformation programme included a workstream on commercial operations, owned by a leadership team of eight reporting into the COO. Eighteen months in, milestones were slipping and the workstream was at risk of being flagged red.
What got stuck
Three of the leaders had different mental models of what "done" looked like. Each thought the others were aligned. The drag was invisible in any individual meeting and obvious across quarters.
What KIVA did
A diagnostic at the leadership team level rather than the workstream level. Two days surfaced the divergent definitions; four working sessions over the following weeks resolved them. KIVA was on site twice in the embed period to support the first major decision the realigned team made together.
What changed
More progress in 60 days vs last 9 months.
FTSE 100 CONSUMER BRAND
03
Marketing
The marketing team that could not agree on its own strategy
"I'd hired a group of good people, not yet a team. KIVA forced us to test what we actually believed. It wasn't comfortable. It worked.”
Chief Marketing Officer, FTSE 100 consumer brand
The situation
Seven senior leaders across brand, performance, content, product marketing, customer insight, and agency partnerships. The CMO had been in post for eighteen months and was frustrated that the same debate kept resurfacing every quarter.
What got stuck
Not the strategy, which was well-articulated. The team had never genuinely committed to the trade-offs the strategy required. Each leader was optimising for the metric most legible to their function.
What KIVA did
Two-day diagnostic with the full leadership team, three working sessions over five weeks, and an embed phase that included one session with the principal agency partner. The work focused on making the strategy's trade-offs concrete enough that each leader could commit to or formally object to them.
What changed
The brand-versus-performance debate stopped recurring. Quarterly reviews moved from re-debate to execution review.
PE-BACKED FINANCIAL SERVICES
04
Executive Team
The executive team after a leadership change
“None of us could have started that conversation alone. KIVA started it - then got out of the way.”
Chief Executive Officer, PE-backed financial services
The situation
A mid-cap financial services business, recently acquired by private equity, with a new CEO appointed nine months earlier. An executive team of eight, a mix of legacy and new appointments, performing adequately but not at the level the value-creation plan required.
What got stuck
Trust between legacy and new members of the executive, never explicitly addressed, was producing a slower and more cautious team than the situation called for. Decisions were being made formally but not committed to.
What KIVA did
A diagnostic that surfaced the trust gap explicitly and named what each side of the team needed from the other. Four working sessions over six weeks. KIVA returned for one further session three months later at the team's request.
What changed
PE sponsor's six-month review noted a step-change in operating tempo
FTSE 250 Industrial
05
Operations
A stalled operations leadership team
"We were heading into a QBR with nothing to show. After KIVA, we walked in with a plan the whole team actually believed in."
Chief Operating Officer, FTSE 250 industrial
The situation
Nine people across manufacturing, supply chain, customer operations, quality, and continuous improvement. Cycle times were creeping, margin was under pressure, and the COO had already commissioned an external operational review that had not shifted the underlying drag.
What got stuck
Two of the most senior reports were avoiding a conversation about the boundary between their functions. The team had collectively organised around the avoidance. The operational metrics were misleading the leadership team about where the actual constraint sat.
What KIVA did
A diagnostic that explicitly worked at the leadership team rather than the process level. Three working sessions where the avoided conversation was had, with KIVA holding the structure. The embed phase focused on translating the new clarity into specific operating-rhythm changes.
What changed
Step change in alignment and accountability