Connect the strategy to how you operate.

Jim helped an acquired portfolio of managed IT and cyber services businesses examine how it should operate as a more integrated group. He used a common activity model to connect offer development, sales, delivery, support and customer success, making overlapping capabilities and systems dependencies easier to assess. The proposed design distinguished customer-facing responsibilities from specialist and shared delivery capabilities. A phased transition plan addressed operational risks, performance visibility and communication with staff and customers. The work gave executives and the board a practical picture of the intended operating model and the sequencing required to move towards it.

In an earlier executive role at a major telecommunications provider, Jim created the case for change and led key phases of an enterprise digital transformation program. The work addressed operational challenges in a large business and connected investment with the way employees and customers experienced its services. Program outcomes included a 20 per cent time saving for account executives through automation of more than 170 processes, and the rollout of self-service capability to 8,000 enterprise customers. This experience combines strategy, business sponsorship and operational leadership across a substantial transformation effort.

Jim led a task force to rethink how an enterprise services business developed products and brought solutions to market. The work embraced agile principles and a stronger user-experience focus, connecting business and technology teams with changes to investment practices. This experience is relevant to organisations that have ideas and technical capability but need a more effective process for developing offers and moving them into market. It combines executive sponsorship with practical attention to how teams collaborate, prioritise and fund development.

Thao analysed peers and benchmarked the degree of adjacency between businesses in diversified groups to support comparisons and decision making for a board paper. Her assessment examined how different business models and operating requirements shaped the rationale for group, business-unit and shared-service roles. The work provided an objective analytical basis for considering operating model choices.

Thao provided financial analysis and strategic assessment in telecommunications, including benchmarking to inform a regulatory engagement supported by KA. Her work connected financial and operational evidence with the questions underlying a major expenditure review, helping develop a consistent basis for comparison and decision making.

In an earlier role at Telstra, Thao contributed to a study comparing capital intensity across telecommunications operators. The work examined international and domestic data, considered differences in reporting scope, and tested how market growth and competitive conditions related to investment levels. It also documented the limitations of the comparisons. The experience combines careful analysis with the commercial judgement needed to interpret infrastructure benchmarks in context and support an informed management discussion.

Sami led the workshop content and core delivery for an AI education and opportunity-prioritisation workshop for managers and staff in public health procurement, delivered with partner Capital AI. He drew on KA’s upfront research to connect AI applications across procurement with the team’s operational context. The workshop built a shared understanding and prioritised potential pilot opportunities for further consideration.

As an innovation program manager at Telstra, Sami helped assess and filter ideas from an internal crowdsourcing platform. He coached idea owners and project leaders, and drove selected projects from concepts towards implementation using Lean Startup methods. His contribution combined the early judgement needed to select ideas with the support needed to develop and test them. The experience is relevant to organisations that want a clearer innovation process and a practical way for employees to progress promising opportunities.

Sami works with leaders on the gap between AI’s promise and its operational risks. His approach draws on strategic foresight, technology experience and lessons from aviation safety about over-reliance on automation. It considers how AI can support human capability and what can happen when organisations allow important skills or judgement to erode. This experience is relevant to executive education and AI strategy discussions where leaders need to examine practical adoption alongside human and organisational consequences.