The strategy lives in slides, not the operating cadence
It is discussed repeatedly, but daily priorities, owners, measures, and behaviour have not changed.
Strategy Execution · Turnarounds · Founder Advisory · AI Strategy
Move the work that cannot afford to stall.
TRACE is a founder advisory and execution firm for founder-led companies in North America. Roddy Awad and the TRACE team help founders, CEOs, owners, and boards move stalled strategy, recover companies and projects, make high-stakes decisions, and turn AI urgency into an executable business case. When delay is burning time, capital, confidence, or enterprise value, TRACE can advise, lead, or execute.
- 28+years across enterprise technology, company building, operations, and leadership
- $30M+personally sold across founder and operating roles
- Multiple exitsacross service and software companies
Founder experience. Flexible team. Accountability through execution.
The cost of drift
Stalled strategy is expensive before it becomes obvious.
The damage first shows up as lost time, reopened decisions, delayed revenue, exhausted leaders, and declining confidence.
The team is not short on intelligence or effort. It is short on dedicated capacity, shared context, and someone with the authority to integrate the work. Daily operations keep winning while the critical initiative becomes another line in a leadership update.
TRACE steps in before the cost compounds. The mandate can be advisory, initiative ownership, temporary executive leadership, or a hands-on team built around the result.
The company or project is drifting and the truth is fragmented
Commitments slip, forecasts move, and each function has a different explanation for why.
The founder is the only integration layer
Decisions, context, and follow-through keep returning to one person, slowing the team and draining the founder.
AI urgency is creating paralysis or random activity
Leadership cannot keep up with the changes, teams are experimenting without a shared business case, and vendors are beginning to shape priorities by default.
Clarity Creates Wins.
Clarity matters only when it changes what happens next.
Ways to intervene
Match the mandate to the cost of waiting.
TRACE is built for problems that are too consequential to leave inside a normal meeting cadence. Roddy and the team can advise, take ownership, or temporarily lead, with a clear outcome, real authority, and an operating rhythm shaped around the result.
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When critical strategy keeps losing to daily operations
Strategy Execution Partner
A market entry, product launch, integration, transformation, or AI rollout is important, but the executive team cannot give it the dedicated ownership it needs. TRACE converts the strategy into decisions, workstreams, owners, measures, and cadence, then drives the cross-functional execution while the team keeps running the business.
Use this when delay is costing growth, timing, or enterprise value.Explore this mandate02
When drift is consuming capital and confidence
Turnaround Executive
Performance is deteriorating, commitments are slipping, and leaders or stakeholders no longer share the same fact base. TRACE establishes the truth, stabilizes the situation, aligns owners and boards, builds the recovery plan, and runs the cadence until control and momentum return.
Use this for underperformance, stalled projects, leadership gaps, post-transaction friction, and board concern.Explore this mandate03
When every hard decision comes back to the founder
Founder Advisory and Executive Coaching
The founder or CEO is carrying competing truths, stakeholder agendas, and decisions that cannot be delegated cleanly. TRACE provides confidential judgment, direct challenge, and operating follow-through so the founder can make the next right move sooner.
Use this when isolation, ambiguity, or repeated decisions are draining time and energy.Explore this mandate04
When AI feels urgent, but the business case is unclear
AI Strategy and Execution
New models and tools appear faster than leadership can assess them. Teams launch pilots, vendors shape priorities, and no one can clearly connect the work to revenue, margin, customer value, speed, risk, or enterprise value. TRACE helps leadership decide what AI should do for the business, define the business case, ownership, safeguards, and sequence, then works alongside internal teams and technical partners to move the right opportunities into execution.
Use this when you are worried about falling behind, but equally worried about funding the wrong solution.Explore this mandate05
When traction exists but growth is stuck
Growth Breakthrough Sprint™
The company is working hard, yet results are inconsistent and the real constraint remains hidden. In 90 days, TRACE surfaces the bottleneck, aligns the leadership team around one diagnosis, and installs the execution system required to create measurable movement.
Use this when the business should be performing better and another round of tactics will only add noise.Explore this mandateThe TRACE operating method
Different situations.
The same path to movement.
Establish the truth
Build a fact base from the data, people, decisions, incentives, and operating reality, not the story everyone has learned to repeat.
Define the outcome
Name what must change, what success means, what is constraining it, and which decisions cannot remain ambiguous.
Build the execution architecture
Translate the outcome into workstreams, owners, measures, dependencies, decision rights, and a visible sequence of work.
Run the cadence
Create the rhythm that exposes drift early, removes blockers, preserves context, and converts meetings into decisions and follow-through.
Leave the system stronger
Transfer context, playbooks, operating discipline, and reusable intelligence so progress does not depend on TRACE staying forever.
The lived advantage
Built. Sold. Integrated. Reacquired. Raised. Exited. Built again.
Roddy's perspective comes from moving through the full company lifecycle, not from one title or one recent chapter.
He began as a developer and then moved into the recovery of troubled enterprise technology projects, where technical issues were only part of the problem. The work required clarity across stakeholders, ownership, sequencing, and delivery.
He later founded and built a technology services company, sold and merged it into an automotive software business, operated inside the combined product company, and then reacquired the business assets he had sold with an institutional insurance partner. That next chapter became an insurance distribution platform backed by additional institutional investors.
Along the way, he participated in multiple exits, chaired boards, invested as an angel, and later helped build an AI-native venture platform focused on company creation, brand, distribution, governance, and enterprise value. The work reinforced how brand and distribution can compound company value, but it remains one chapter in a broader operating career.
AI strategy and execution
AI feels urgent. The wrong first move is expensive.
Every week brings new models, agents, tools, and claims. Waiting feels dangerous. Chasing all of it creates scattered pilots, rising subscriptions, security concerns, and time pulled away from the business. Leadership does not need to understand every new release. It needs to know what matters, what to ignore, and what to implement first.
There is another risk. A technical consultant is hired to implement AI, correctly starts asking strategic questions, and becomes the business strategist by default. Technical depth is essential, but it is not a substitute for understanding the business model, customers, industry, margins, distribution, governance, operating constraints, or shareholder priorities. A technically impressive solution can still solve the wrong problem.
- Separate durable opportunities from hype and rank them by business value.
- Define the outcome, owner, business case, safeguards, and measures before selecting tools.
- Represent the business outcome alongside internal technology teams and implementation partners.
- Turn the selected use cases into operating workflows, decision systems, and measurable results.
Business firstTRACE helps leadership decide what AI should do for the business before anyone decides how to build it.
Explore business-led AI strategy
Breadth of experience
Pattern recognition built across industries, business models, and functions.
TRACE's value is not a narrow industry playbook. It is the ability to connect market, revenue, operations, technology, people, capital, and governance when the issue crosses normal organizational boundaries.
Industry exposure
Operating disciplines
Why TRACE exists
Helping Founders Win.
Roddy knows the pressure of the founder role because he has carried it.
He also knows the difference the right guidance can make when it arrives at the right moment. A trusted perspective can save years of effort, protect capital, preserve energy, and help a founder make the move that would have been difficult to see alone.
TRACE exists to provide that advantage. Roddy and the team are also committed to helping the next generation of entrepreneurs and builders create enduring companies and make a positive impact on the world.
Fit
TRACE is useful when...
- A critical strategy needs a dedicated owner with founder-level access.
- A company, business unit, or project is off track and the truth is unclear.
- The founder or CEO needs an experienced, confidential thought partner.
- The work crosses functions, stakeholders, and competing priorities.
- The leadership team is willing to expose reality, make decisions, and act.
- AI feels urgent, but no one can separate durable opportunities from hype or own the business case.
TRACE is not useful when...
- You only need a generic strategy deck or a motivational workshop.
- The mandate has no access to decision-makers, data, or the operating team.
- You want to outsource accountability instead of creating it.
- You want a collection of AI tools without a business case, owner, or willingness to change how work gets done.
- There is no willingness to make difficult decisions when the facts require them.
How TRACE shows up
Advise when judgment is needed. Lead when ownership is missing. Execute when the result matters.
The goal is not dependence on another consultant. It is movement, stronger leaders, clearer systems, and an operating model that keeps working after the engagement.
FAQ
Questions leaders ask before starting.
Is TRACE a consultancy, a fractional executive, or a coaching practice?
The engagement follows the problem. TRACE can provide an advisor, initiative owner, temporary executive, coach, or hands-on operating team. Roddy remains closely involved in senior mandates while the delivery team flexes around the work. The mandate is defined around a clear outcome, authority, responsibilities, and cadence.
Does TRACE replace the existing executive team?
Usually not. In strategy execution work, TRACE supports the founder or CEO and coordinates the critical initiative while the executive team continues to run the business. In a turnaround, Roddy and the TRACE team can take on a temporary executive mandate when the situation requires clearer authority and dedicated capacity.
What size or stage of company is the best fit?
TRACE is most useful in founder-led growth companies, established private businesses, and portfolio companies where the issue is strategically important and crosses functions or stakeholders. Fit depends more on complexity, urgency, and access than on a specific revenue threshold.
We know AI matters but do not know where to start. Can TRACE help?
Yes. TRACE starts with the business, not the tools. We first identify where the company is losing time, margin, revenue, customer value, decision quality, or risk control. We then rank the AI opportunities and define the business case, owner, safeguards, and execution sequence.
Does TRACE replace our technical AI consultant or internal technology team?
No. Technical specialists remain essential for architecture, data, security, integration, and implementation. TRACE represents the business outcome, helping leadership own the strategy and ensuring the technical work is tied to measurable value rather than allowing vendor capabilities to define the roadmap.
How long does an engagement last?
Founder advisory may continue on a monthly basis. Strategy execution can range from 90 days to multiple quarters. Turnaround mandates are usually milestone-based. The Growth Breakthrough Sprint is a defined 90-day engagement.
Where does TRACE work?
TRACE works with leaders across North America through a mix of remote collaboration and focused on-site work when the mandate benefits from being in the room.
The next right move
Important work does not need more attention. It needs ownership.
Choose a time for a focused 15-minute conversation. We will use the call to understand the situation, determine fit, and identify the most useful next step.
Start the conversation15-minute conversationFocused first step