pro
“I help founders stop being the operating system of their company. Fractional COO | Startup growth | Human-first AI”
For the last 15+ years, I've worked behind the scenes inside early-stage startups, helping founders turn messy, founder-dependent companies into businesses that can actually scale.
Today I'm the founder of Rise & Optimize, where I serve as a Fractional COO for Seed through Series A SaaS companies. I step in when growth starts creating chaos—cross-functional communication breaks down, the founder becomes the bottleneck, onboarding gets messy, and everyone feels busy but progress slows.
The work is operational, but the conversations rarely are.
We end up talking about leadership, burnout, trust, AI, decision-making, and what it takes to build a company that doesn't rely on one person knowing all the answers.
Before launching my own firm, I spent 14 years leading operations across customer success, sales, marketing, finance, HR, and fundraising. Along the way I've uncovered hidden revenue, reduced onboarding time by up to 50%, built investor-ready operations, and helped founders reclaim their time so they can focus on leading instead of firefighting.
If your audience loves honest conversations about startups, leadership, career reinvention, AI, or building healthier companies, I'd love to join them.
A field guide for cleaning up chaos, building smarter systems, and surviving early-stage silliness with your integrity intact. Click to read Systems & Side-eyes, by Katie Barnes, a Substack publication with thousands of subscribers.
Ops guidance for founders tired of duct-taping their way to growth. One weekly clarity drop to help you scale smarter. (with a side-eye đź‘€ and a system.)
