Fractional COO / Integrator — Help Build & Launch a New Professional Institute

Fractional COO / Integrator — Help Build & Launch a New Professional Institute The Opportunity We are looking for an exceptional Fractional COO / Integrator to work directly with an established entrepreneur, author, speaker, and executive coach to help build and launch the Professional Collaboration Institute (PCI). This is not a virtual assistant, administrative, or conventional project-management role. It is also not a consulting assignment where you provide recommendations and leave execution to someone else. We need a senior operator who can take a founder's vision, intellectual property, relationships, and multiple strategic initiatives and turn them into an organized, accountable, executable business operation. The founder will primarily own vision, intellectual property, major relationships, thought leadership, speaking, and strategic direction. The Fractional COO / Integrator will own the integration and execution of that vision—turning ideas into priorities, projects, people, systems, deadlines, metrics, and results. About the Founder PCI is being founded by Sarano Kelley, an author, entrepreneur, professional speaker, and executive coach with more than two decades of experience working extensively within the financial-services industry. Sarano and his company, The Kelley Group, have trained and coached financial advisors, advisory teams, executives, managers, and financial-services professionals throughout North America. His background includes: Presenting to more than 250,000 financial professionals Working with financial advisors and leaders from many of the world's leading financial institutions Extensive experience coaching successful financial advisors, executives, and advisory teams Serving as a professional speaker and trainer throughout the financial-services industry Being recognized by the Wharton School as a leading speaker to the financial-services industry Teaching executive communication and presence through Wharton executive education Authoring books and developing proprietary training methodologies in business development, communication, and professional relationships More than two decades of relationships with financial advisors, wholesalers, field leaders, corporate executives, and other financial-services professionals This means PCI is not starting with an idea and no marketplace. The founder brings an established industry reputation, intellectual property, relationships, an existing business infrastructure, and access to the professional audience the Institute is intended to serve. The opportunity is to take those assets and build an organization around them that can ultimately operate and scale beyond the founder. About the Professional Collaboration Institute The Professional Collaboration Institute (PCI) is being created around a simple but significant idea: Professional Collaboration should become a recognized discipline rather than simply an informal business skill. PCI will initially serve financial professionals and their centers of influence and ultimately bring together professionals, corporations, associations, academic institutions, researchers, authors, and thought leaders interested in understanding and advancing how high-value professional relationships and collaborative business ecosystems are created. We envision an ecosystem that may include: Founding members and advisory councils A multi-tier professional membership organization Original research and proprietary intellectual property Professional education and certification Books and thought leadership A podcast featuring prominent experts and industry leaders Corporate and association partnerships University and academic relationships Conferences, speaking programs, and events Corporate sponsorships Speakers, coaches, and professional resources There is already significant intellectual property, market credibility, relationships, and strategic vision. The primary challenge now is execution. That is where you come in. Your Assignment Your primary responsibility will be to help transform PCI from a compelling vision and collection of strategic initiatives into a disciplined operating organization capable of launching and scaling. 1. Turn Founder Vision Into an Operating Plan Work directly with the founder to translate strategy, opportunities, and ideas into: Priorities Projects Milestones Owners Deadlines Budgets Dependencies KPIs Measurable outcomes You should be comfortable taking a 60-minute strategic conversation and turning it into an organized execution plan. Just as importantly, you should have the executive judgment to help determine: What should we do now? What should we do later? And what should we not do at all? 2. Become the Integrator Across PCI There will be multiple initiatives occurring simultaneously. You will become the central operating point connecting areas such as membership, research, education, certification, marketing, podcast production, content, events, institutional partnerships, sponsorships, technology, and outside contractors. Your responsibility is not to personally perform all this work. Your responsibility is to make sure the right people are doing the right work, in the right sequence, at the right time—and that it gets completed. 3. Establish an Executive Operating Rhythm Create a simple management system that allows the founder to quickly understand: What has been accomplished What is currently underway What is behind schedule What decisions are required What resources are needed What the highest priorities are What happens next This should include appropriate weekly meetings, dashboards, scorecards, KPIs, project tracking, decision tracking, and accountability systems. 4. Build and Manage the Resource Structure Help determine what capabilities PCI actually needs and whether those resources should be: Employees Fractional executives Freelancers Agencies Specialized consultants Technology or AI solutions You should be capable of helping identify, interview, onboard, coordinate, and hold these resources accountable. 5. Build the Membership Operating Infrastructure Help transform our founding-member initiative into a scalable professional membership organization. This includes the operating structure surrounding member acquisition, onboarding, programming, communications, benefits, engagement, retention, events, technology, and measurement. 6. Coordinate Research and Intellectual Property PCI intends to become a recognized authority on Professional Collaboration. You will help establish the operating processes around research, surveys, expert interviews, reports, proprietary frameworks, educational programs, certification, and other intellectual property. 7. Support Institutional Partnerships The founder and other senior resources will develop relationships with corporations, financial institutions, professional associations, universities, researchers, sponsors, and other strategic partners. Your job is to ensure opportunities don't disappear because of inadequate organization or follow-through. We want a repeatable operating process that moves relationships from: Conversation → Opportunity → Proposal → Agreement → Execution → Ongoing Partnership 8. Help Build an AI-Enabled Organization We do not want to build PCI using an unnecessarily large traditional organizational structure. We are highly interested in using AI, automation, integrated technology, dashboards, and streamlined workflows to create an unusually productive organization with a relatively small core team. We are particularly interested in candidates who already use AI extensively within their own executive and operating workflows. Who We Are Looking For We are substantially more interested in what you have actually built than your previous title. Relevant backgrounds could include: Fractional COO COO Integrator Operating Partner Chief of Staff General Manager Entrepreneurial operator Startup/scale-up executive Association or membership executive We strongly prefer candidates who have helped take something from concept or early stage into a functioning, scalable operation. Particularly Valuable Experience You do not need experience in every category, but strong candidates will have meaningful experience in several: Working directly with entrepreneurial founders Translating founder vision into execution Building organizations or new business units Managing multiple simultaneous strategic initiatives Creating operating plans and accountability systems Managing fractional and remote teams Hiring and managing freelancers, agencies, and specialists Membership organizations Professional associations Executive education Certification programs Research or thought-leadership organizations Financial or professional services Corporate partnerships and sponsorships CRM and workflow systems Executive dashboards and KPI management AI-enabled business operations and automation The Person We Want You naturally bring structure to entrepreneurial complexity. You are strategic enough to challenge the founder's thinking but operational enough to turn a strategic conversation into: “Here's what we're doing. Here's who's responsible. Here's when it's due. Here's what it costs. And here's how we'll know whether it worked.” You should be comfortable working with a highly entrepreneurial founder who generates ideas, relationships, and opportunities quickly. You don't become overwhelmed by that environment. You organize it, prioritize it, and turn it into execution. We particularly value someone who is willing to say: “That's a good idea, but it isn't one of our three priorities right now.” The right person will be proactive, resourceful, highly organized, technologically sophisticated, comfortable making decisions, and relentless about follow-through. This Role Is NOT Please do not apply if your primary experience is as a: Virtual assistant Administrative assistant Basic project manager Marketing coordinator General business consultant We are looking for someone with the experience and executive judgment to function as a genuine Fractional COO / Integrator. We don't need someone whose primary contribution is telling us what should be done. We need someone who makes sure it gets done. Initial Assignment The engagement will initially be fractional. One of your first major deliverables will be to work directly with the founder to create a 90-Day PCI Execution Plan. That plan should identify: The highest-priority initiatives What happens now versus later Required people and resources Responsibilities and ownership Budget requirements Milestones KPIs Risks and dependencies Weekly operating cadence From there, you will help lead implementation. There is an opportunity for the relationship and level of responsibility to expand substantially as PCI grows. Our objective is not simply to hire someone to complete a project. We want to find an exceptional operating partner who is excited by the opportunity to help build an institution. How to Apply Please begin your application with the words: “PCI INTEGRATOR” Then answer the following: What is the best example of something you personally helped take from concept or early stage into a functioning organization? What specifically were you responsible for? Have you worked directly with a highly entrepreneurial or visionary founder? How did you manage the relationship between vision and execution? What operating systems, meeting rhythms, dashboards, KPIs, or accountability processes did you implement? What experience do you have with membership organizations, associations, education, research, financial services, or thought-leadership businesses? How are you currently using AI and automation to improve business operations? If you were selected for this assignment, what would you want to accomplish during your first 30 days? Please provide specific examples and measurable results rather than general descriptions of your capabilities. We are looking for someone who sees this as an opportunity to help an established entrepreneur turn an existing platform, body of intellectual property, and network of relationships into a significant professional institution.