A familiar pattern
A leadership team agrees a clear priority — a new market, a payments migration, an enterprise push. Weeks later, progress is patchy. Nobody disagreed with the plan; it simply moved between product, commercial, finance and operations without anyone owning the whole.
Give cross-functional work a single owner
Every initiative that spans more than one team needs one person accountable for the outcome — not for doing all the work, but for making sure decisions are made and dependencies are resolved.
Separate decisions from status
Leadership time spent hearing status updates is time not spent deciding. Written updates can carry the status; meetings should be reserved for the decisions that are blocking progress.
Build small systems, early
A one-page initiative brief, a shared decision log and a fortnightly review are enough for most startups. The point is not bureaucracy; it is making sure that what was agreed is still visible a month later.
About the author
Keji Pius is an independent strategy and operations consultant working with fintech and technology startups on payments, growth, partnerships and execution. More about Keji.