Spans & layers
Organisation structure redesign
We rebalance how many people each manager leads, remove management layers that add cost without value, and create a career path for experts that does not force them into management.
Organisation design for growing businesses
We fix the structure that slows growing businesses down.
Too many managers, too many approvals, and a founder who has become the bottleneck. We work with founders, CEOs and private equity partners of businesses with 40–250 staff. As you grow, the informal ways of working that got you here start to break. We redesign who reports to whom, who decides what, and how work moves between teams – so decisions get made faster and payroll goes where it adds value.
The problem
Why growing businesses stall
It is usually the structure, not the people.
01
Managers with almost no one to manage
Promoting your best specialists to manage one or two people creates extra management layers. Each layer adds cost and another hand-off, but no extra output – a pass-through management tax.
02
The founder as the bottleneck
Once informal conversations stop working, every disagreement between teams and every spending decision lands on the CEO's desk. Leadership becomes the queue everything waits in.
03
Everyone consulted, no one deciding
Without one clear owner for each decision, teams go round in circles of meetings and reviews. A simple framework (DACI: Driver, Approver, Contributors, Informed) fixes who decides.
Free guide
Why Growing Businesses Get Stuck (And How to Fix It)
A short, practical read on the structural reasons growth stalls – and the first changes that get decisions moving again.
Track record
Founder & Principal Consultant
Julie Geens
MSc Occupational Psychology (Birkbeck, University of London) | BSc (Hons) Psychology
I am fascinated by how organisations function as whole systems – the messy, interdependent space where operating models, technology, and human behaviour collide.
With a master's in occupational psychology culminating in a research project on entrepreneurial identity, and having founded businesses myself, I understand commercial ownership firsthand. Combined with twenty years shaping structures across heavy manufacturing, retail, policing, healthcare, and higher education, I don't treat operating models as abstract boxes on a slide.
My focus is on how work actually flows: untangling structural friction, aligning governance and spans of control, and designing resilient systems where people thrive and commercial strategy gets delivered.
£60M
Merger Synergies
Designed the combined operating model for 6,600 staff in the Lafarge Tarmac JV, and built an independent 800-person divestment unit.
29,000
Enterprise Scale
Led the workforce operating model, behavioural adoption, and systems architecture for Europe's largest NHS Trust transformation.
£5M
Emergency Services Restructure
Consolidated Police & Fire support operations across 4,300 staff, returning £5M on a £200M operating budget.
30%–40%
Attrition Reduction
Engineered diagnostic and recruitment frameworks that cut annual workforce turnover by up to 40% in high-risk operational teams.
Double 2024
National Recognition
HPMA National Winner (Browne Jacobson Award) and CIPD National Finalist for Best Organisational Design & Effectiveness Initiative.
20+ Yrs
Systems Architecture
Eliminating structural drag, hollow tiers, and decision bottlenecks using commercial systems design and applied occupational psychology.
What we do
How we help
Decision rights (DACI)
Clear decision-making
We set out exactly who approves what, when issues escalate, and how work passes between teams – so decisions stop waiting in meetings.
Data-led diagnostics
Organisation health check
Upload your staff list and we map your real reporting lines. Combined with occupational psychology, it shows where payroll is being wasted and where work gets stuck.
Free scorecard
How much is your structure slowing you down?
Answer five quick questions about your management layers, how fast decisions get made, and how much lands on the founder. You'll get an instant score.
5 questions · 5 minutes · Free
Step 1 / 5
How many people work in your business?
The more people, the harder it is to keep everyone aligned informally.
How to engage
Engagement Models
Start with a free scorecard, commission a certified report, then add direct advice to turn the findings into action. Each package stands alone – you don't have to upgrade. Pick by what you want: ideas, answers, or a discussion.
01
Systems Architecture Field Guides
£95 each or £295 for the set
Self-Implementation Toolkits
- 01Spans & Layers
- 02De-routing the Founder
- 03Disseminated Decision Rights
- 04The 90-Day Structural Transition Blueprint
- 05The Human + Machine Operating Model
- 06Polarity Architecture
Included inside every Certified Blueprint vault.
02
Certified Operating Architecture Blueprint
£795
Includes all six Field Guides.
An automated, forensic audit of your live headcount and reporting lines, reviewed and certified by Julie Geens.
What you receive
A 12-page executive report mapping your structural topology – who reports to whom – and identifying hollow management tiers that add cost without value. It calculates your Pass-Through Management Tax, the cost of those extra hand-offs, and includes a ready-to-use DACI decision matrix setting out who drives, approves, contributes to and is informed about each decision.
3–5 business days · Certified by Julie Geens
03
Executive Strategy Sprint
£1,495
Or add to your Blueprint for +£700
The full package: all six Systems Architecture Field Guides, the Certified Operating Architecture Blueprint, and a 60-minute, one-to-one Executive Strategy Debrief with Julie Geens.
What you receive
Direct advice to unpack friction between departments, clarify your executive team's responsibilities, and build a concrete 90-day transition roadmap – changing the structure without culture shock or losing good people.
Includes the Field Guides and the Certified Blueprint · 60-minute executive debrief