Transformation & Optimization

Transformation fails in execution, not in design. The diagnostic is rarely the hard part — what's hard is sequencing the work so reliability stabilizes before structural moves begin, holding the cash-conversion cycle together while costs come down, and keeping the leadership team aligned long enough for compounding to begin.

23.5 Strategies treats transformation as an operating system: reliability, commercial performance, working capital, and capital allocation discipline held together by one cadence and one set of decision rights. The objective is durable value creation that survives the engagement — not a slide deck the team puts down after the kickoff.

Optimization is the cousin discipline. Most asset-heavy businesses don't need a transformation — they need a tightening: a cleaner pricing system, a working-capital program that actually moves DSO and DPO, an operating cadence that surfaces decisions rather than status, a portfolio review that names what to invest in and what to let pass. The firm runs these as sequenced programs with named owners, measurable KPIs, and the leadership rhythm that holds them in place.

Process improvement sits inside that work — lean and continuous-improvement principles applied where they actually move financial outcomes, not as a methodology badge. Throughput, quality, maintenance discipline, procurement, and S&OP are treated as parts of the same cost-to-serve and margin system rather than separate initiatives chasing their own KPIs.

Business-model and structural redesign is the third lane. Sometimes the work isn't to run the existing operating model harder — it's to redraw it: a joint-venture structure that aligns incentives, a carve-out that frees a unit to perform on its own merits, a commercial structure that re-prices and re-segments the customer base, an organizational design that gives the next operating cycle the decision rights it needs. The firm advises on what to restructure, how to sequence the move, and what to install on the other side.

The same discipline cuts across every industry the firm engages — energy and renewables, fuels and distribution, infrastructure, chemicals, power, logistics, industrials, and manufacturing. The case studies behind the firm's $150MM+ in growth value unlocked sit here.