Canadian regional public-service clients, June 2026
A considered point of view.
A handover succeeds when the receiving team can explain and perform the work without borrowing the departing team indefinitely. I ask people to demonstrate that ability while there is still time to change the arrangement. A signed completion record is useful, but it cannot answer the next operational question for them.
Selected leadership work / 01
Pricing the six weeks nobody had owned
During a review of recently completed transitions, I found that our teams continued to answer substantial client questions after the formal project period ended.
I run an IT-services business around the knowledge a client must still be able to use after a transition is declared finished.
I am chief executive of Velmoraine Systems, a Canadian IT-services company supporting regional public-service organisations and their administrative teams. Our 620 colleagues work across service transition, technical support and operational documentation. We serve 64 contracted organisations and recorded C$88 million of revenue in 2025. These figures describe the company I lead; they do not imply that I personally delivered every engagement. My responsibility is to make the commercial promise, the staffing model and the client's ability to operate after a project agree with each other.
My first job was on a support desk, where I learnt that a successful installation could still leave the person answering a customer's call without a usable explanation. The answer might exist in a project folder, but that was little comfort if its author had moved on and nobody could tell which version applied. I later managed implementation teams, service transitions and operations. Each role brought me closer to the point where a temporary project organisation hands responsibility to people who must live with its decisions every day.
Across operating leadership and the CEO role, I have changed how we price knowledge transfer, stopped describing language coverage through a blended staffing average and reduced a resale activity that obscured the economics of our service work. Those decisions have not all increased reported revenue. They have helped us identify which commitments we can sustain without depending on a few colleagues who know how to rescue an incomplete handover. I want their experience to improve the system, not become the invisible condition on which every service promise rests.
A handover period with a stated owner
We priced six weeks of transition support separately in a twelve-engagement pilot rather than treating it as unplanned goodwill. Nine clients chose the full option, two chose a reduced scope and one postponed its transition.
Language coverage measured when it is needed
We replaced an overall bilingual-headcount measure with a view of the people available in each contracted support window. Two windows required a different staffing arrangement despite an apparently sufficient company-wide total.
Revenue reduced deliberately
We let C$11 million of low-contribution licence resale expire over two years while retaining the associated support relationships where clients wanted them. The decision reduced gross revenue and required a separate explanation of service contribution.
Current focus
I am working on the quality of operational documentation when an experienced client employee leaves. The test is whether another authorised colleague can use the record, not whether a document exists in the agreed repository.
Conversations I welcome
I would consider one external board role in a service organisation with a substantial transition or succession challenge. Any discussion would require employer clearance, a conflict review and a credible allowance for work between scheduled meetings.
The leadership record
Trusted with consequential decisions.
In the boardroom
Velmoraine SystemsExecutive director · January 2021–present
Formation
Diploma in computer systemsAvermont Technical College · 1997
Amelia kept the founder’s objection to the resale exit in the board record and chose measures that could test it. When four clients moved their support, she brought that result back without disguising the loss.
I would consider one external board role in a service organisation with a substantial transition or succession challenge. Any discussion would require employer clearance, a conflict review and a credible allowance for work between scheduled meetings.
