CPO and COO skillsets in one fractional partner
People problems and operations problems are often linked. Sometimes one is the cause. Sometimes it’s the effect. By bringing in one person that knows both, you get someone who sees your organization from multiple perspectives, and can fill more gaps as your team grows and changes.
I’ve built out People, Administration, IT, Legal, Vendor Management and Internal Comms teams, and can help you build out yours.
Hi, I’m Adam. I can help.
I knew early that my calling was to make work better.
I grew up watching my dad trade his health for a paycheck in a physically demanding career in construction, while also watching my mom pour her heart into a teaching career that she loved. Same 9-5. Very different experiences. That carried me into college where I studied psychology and business administration, then to grad school where I got a master’s degree in the most science-forward application of HR I could find, Industrial & Organizational Psych.
15+ years of building
I’ve always been drawn to organizations with interesting problems, first as a specialist, then an HR leader, and more recently an operations executive. I love what I do, because solving problems makes work better for employees, while also making organizations stronger and more resilient.
As my career has grown, the problems I’ve chased have grown, and organizations’ needs have changed. For all that’s changed, a lot hasn’t. Whether it’s a quick v1 or broad organizational transformation, I work to:
- Address a clearly defined need
- Generate more value than the time something takes to build and maintain
- Leave organizations and their people in a better place than they started
Major milestones
Full career history and recommendations available on LinkedIn.
Ready to tell me about you?
Book a 20 minute callYou built something that works. Now it has to scale.
You hired smart generalists and they’ve carried you this far.
Headcount doubled. Operating agility has slowed.
Overhead expenses are growing. You see opportunities to improve.
Your first hire operates well. Now you need an architect.
Pick your problem-set
Diagnostic
Feeling organizational pain but don’t know where to start? I can host intake meetings with your leadership team and staff, then audit your systems and processes.
Two to three weeks, fixed fee. Ends with themes, my recommendations, and a prioritized 90-day list. You decide where to go from there.
Purpose-Built Infrastructure & AI
Have a solid operator who works well with processes, but they need help closing a gap in your tech stack?
Two to six weeks, scoped after a call or the diagnostic. Fixed scope, fixed end date. I build the system, process or tool, then train your owner.
Fractional CPO / COO
Feeling some decision fatigue and looking to offload some responsibility?
Two or three days a week, two-month minimum, then rolling. For companies looking for a more hands-on approach with defined areas of responsibility and decision making.
Retained Advisory
Need someone in your corner who’s been there before?
Monthly retainer. A standing call with your leadership team, and ad hoc calls as needed. For teams who need a sounding board, or have high-potential team members who would benefit from a mentor.
From those I’ve worked with
“Adam has two qualities that stand shoulders above others: his ability to bring clarity and organizational structure to a rapidly scaling company still finding its way, and his genuine desire to help others. He was an exceptional leader, a trusted business partner, and a cultural beacon for the entire company.”
“In four years I never heard him use HR jargon with a business leader. It’s why People was an expert function at Sandbox, not a support one. Plenty of people can run a function at this level. Adam makes it somewhere people want to be.”
“What distinguishes Adam is his ability to balance strategic thinking with practical execution. I have no doubt that Adam would be an outstanding addition to any executive leadership team.”
“He is a developer of people before anything else. He absorbed pressure without passing it down and had a way of bringing clarity in the face of uncertainty. People do their best work alongside him, and they leave his team better than they arrived.”
From my LinkedIn recommendations.
Where to start
You’ve got questions?
Is it better to start project-based or engagement-based?
While both options are available, project-based efforts tend to be the “safest” place to start. You get a fixed scope with an easily defined end-point, whether that’s a broad diagnostic, or a targeted implementation. If those go well, you not only have a clearer picture of what needs ongoing support, but you’ll also have more confidence if you’ve chosen the right person to help you.
CPO or COO, which one do I need?
Why not both? If you aren’t sure, you don’t have to choose one or the other (with me). You get both, in one person.
When to go fractional vs. a full-time hire?
At a certain size, most companies will need a full-time executive. For companies:
- trying to run leaner for longer
- that have stabilized at a certain headcount (usually below 200)
- with recent executive turnover who want to bridge the gap time before hiring again…
…fractional work is a strong option.
Additionally, companies who have never hired for this role often leave a fractional engagement with a much clearer picture of what they need (and the fractional role will often help support hiring that full-time role).
What if I have more questions?
Have something in mind?
Book a 20 minute callI love building things.
- When I was a kid, my version of fun was building landmarks with K’Nex and Legos.
- As a teen, I envied engineers who could easily bring their ideas to life.
- As an adult, Claude Code has become my new Lego.
…You could say I’m making up for lost time.
Bishop is an AI agent for job seekers, built as a Claude Code plugin. Users upload a resume and answer 15–30 minutes of setup questions. Bishop then runs on a schedule, scouring thousands of roles across multiple job hubs, filtering for fit against the user’s criteria and ranking the matches in an HTML digest.
Value Sort is a card-sorting self-discovery exercise designed to help teams work better together. Participants sort and rank 64 value cards over the course of 15 minutes, then leave this exercise with a ranked list of their underlying motivations, and how those values influence how they show up at work.
Amicus is a contract framework that can be deployed in any organization. It digests already signed contracts, NDAs, MSAs, and SOWs, and builds a modular database of contract terms, organized by section. Each build does not come pre-configured, and is not a replacement for legal counsel. Amicus is unique to each organization, and the value scales with repetition. Once Amicus reaches a critical mass of contracts, it can also be used to evaluate outside agreements against historically agreed-to terms.
WIPAll-Onboard is an onboarding packet builder that digests a wide variety of organizational data (names, emails, org chart) and uses that information to pre-populate onboarding guides for new hires, using a template that is brand-forward, and low time-commitment, which can be used by hiring managers or HR teams.
A home digital cookbook that curates our family’s recipes on a web-based platform that displays on an iPad in the kitchen. New recipes are added by submitting a simple URL. An agent transcribes it, writes a card with a featured image, computes all macros (complete with healthy substitutions), and writes step-by-step instructions. It also shares ingredients with our home assistant’s grocery list, which pushes to cell phones. 300+ recipes and counting.
Fantasy Movie League is an idea born from a recent cookout, where several friends joked about wanting a fantasy concept that didn’t require knowledge of sports. I built a fresh web-based concept inspired by a defunct movie league (that shut down in 2020), where each fantasy team is a movie theater. Owners have eight available screens a week, and can schedule any movie to each screen, as long as it’s currently in theaters. Points are awarded not based on total revenue, but by how much those movies beat their weekend projections.
Quorum is an app framework designed to intake a wide variety of previously curated data sources to help two people quickly make a decision. It can be used to help a couple that never knows what to watch, what to make for dinner, or weekend plans. Participants swipe decks of cards in private. Matches surface. Decisions are made.
A shared catalogue of 8,000+ shows/movies, enriched with IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, OMDb, and TMDb data; automatically refreshed weekly with new releases. It includes a predictive model that analyzes self-reported ratings on movies/shows my wife and I have seen, along with four other datapoints to recommend what we’d most likely enjoy next. It also integrates cleanly with our picker app, Quorum.
Carney’s Midway is an agent that builds Los Angeles entertainment digests catered to our likes. It scans cultural events, concerts, screenings, and pop-ups across the city, filters them against our taste profile, and delivers a curated weekly rundown of the most relevant activities.
Want help with your AI enablement efforts?
Book a 20 minute callEveryone loves a free sample.
Bishop
Know someone running a reduction in force? Add Bishop to the outplacement package. It costs nothing, takes each person 15 to 30 minutes to set up, then searches thousands of postings on a schedule and sends them a ranked digest.
Open Bishop Guide ↗
Fully-Loaded Labor Forecasting
One of the most easily correctible oversights companies make when workforce planning is an accidental underestimation of how labor costs scale with each new employee. I’ve built a calculator that helps benchmark “fully-loaded labor costs.”
Open Labor Calculator ↗Value Sort
A 15-minute values sort for your next offsite. It works as a great icebreaker and conversation starter. Everyone leaves with their ranked motivations and how those show up at work. Works for a team of 5 or 50.
Open Value Sort ↗Interested in more?
Book a 20 minute call
I’m here to help you find a few new… angles for your job search.
- Know someone “open to work?” Share this with them.
- HR Pros planning layoffs: a no-cost, no-effort addition to any outplacement package.
- College/Grad Administrators: Bishop can help new grads cast a wider net to uncover postings in less obvious job boards across the internet.
Install Claude Code
Install Claude and open the desktop app.
If this is your first time running Claude Code, open “Claude Chat and Cowork” and say “Help me set up Claude Code on my computer.” Follow the instructions.
It may ask you to install a few things like “Git…” That’s normal. If you have questions about what Claude is installing, ask Claude to explain it.
Select “Code” from the menu in the top left corner.
Install via Claude Plugins
On the left sidebar, click Customize.
Click the Plugins tab. In the top right, click “Add,” then “Add marketplace.”
“Add from a repository.”
In the box, type “adamhilliard/bishop” and click “Sync.”
“Bishop Job Search” should now appear in the list. Click Install.
Start a new conversation in Claude Code. It won’t show up in one that was already open.
Say: “Help me set up a job search.” If nothing happens, quit Claude, reopen, and try again.
If “Bishop Job Search” Does Not Appear in the Claude Marketplace
You can still access Bishop on GitHub.
- Download bishop.zip.
- Unzip it, and move the bishop folder into your Claude skills folder. If the folder is not there, create it.
- Windows: (YOURUSERPROFILE)\.claude\skills\
- Mac: ~/.claude/skills/
- Quit Claude and reopen it.
- Say: “Help me set up a job search.”
Fully-loaded labor forecasting
Fully loaded cost formulas are often calculated yearly, usually during benefits open enrollment and/or bulk insurance renewals (the two costs most likely to change, year-over-year).
For the more industrious… here you go.
| Incremental Costs (%) | Typical | Yours |
|---|---|---|
| Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA)Mandatory | 7.65% | % |
| Unemployment InsuranceMandatory | 0.5–1.5% | % |
| Workers’ Compensation InsuranceMandatory | 0.3–2% | % |
| Health InsuranceMandatory 50+ | 8–14% | % |
| Disability & Life InsuranceOptional | 0.5–1.5% | % |
| Employee Retirement MatchingOptional | 3–4% | % |
| 3rd Party Software and TokensOptional | 2–4% | % |
| Incremental Load | 22–35% | 27% |
| Salary Multiple (before flat costs) | 1.2x–1.35x | 1.27x |
| Incremental Costs (Flat) | Typical | Cost / Staff |
|---|---|---|
| Starter EquipmentMandatory Laptop, Desk, Keyboard etc. | $1,000–3,000 | $ |
| Office Space AllocationOptional (If you have an office) The cost of that office, divided proportionally across all staff in that office. | Lease Cost$ ÷Desks= $10,000 | |
| Flat Cost / Staff | $11,500 | |