Case study · Strategy & vision
Turning Strategy Into Team Action
I created a strategy framework that connected every team’s quarterly OKRs to company goals and helped halve lead returns without losing gross margin.
The context
The annual plan was organised mainly around projects, and leadership discussions tended to focus on solutions, which made it harder for teams to connect their daily work to company goals. After a major shift in one of our markets in 2024, sharp focus became more important than ever.
The challenge
As co-author of the annual plan with the leadership team, I needed to make our strategy explicit and translate it into priorities every team could act on.
How I approached it
I took the initiative to design the plan’s structure. I used the Golden Circle to articulate why we existed: to make finding services effortless and create strong matches between consumers and service partners.
I then defined our North Star metric: “successful match value”—the gross margin generated by leads that delivered a positive return on investment for partners. We measured it across the funnel, from a consumer request to a successful match. Beneath this North Star, I created a cascade of four multi-year strategic themes, annual company OKRs and quarterly team OKRs.
I challenged and refined the goals and themes proposed by the leadership team before we finalised them, then wrote the full strategy presentation. This gave teams a clear line of sight from their quarterly work to the company’s long-term direction.
To keep everyone working from the same data, I built shared strategic and operational dashboards and introduced a weekly Monday review in which specialists explained what we saw by channel, why, and which action they would take.
What it delivered
Every team created quarterly OKRs linked to company objectives, and leadership, marketing and sales worked from one version of the truth through a consistent weekly cadence. Decision-making shifted from debating which solution to build toward agreeing on the outcome to achieve. One of our 2025 company key results was to halve lead returns without losing gross margin, and we achieved it.
Looking back
I learned that strategy becomes useful only when teams can connect long-term direction to measurable quarterly outcomes. Defining a North Star, cascading it into themes and OKRs, and creating shared dashboards helped move conversations from preferred solutions to the outcomes we needed to achieve.
I would introduce that shared language and weekly review cadence earlier, especially when market conditions demand sharper focus. The principle I carry into future roles is simple: make the purpose explicit, agree on one version of the truth, and give teams a clear line of sight from their daily decisions to the company’s goals.