Vanessa EllisChief Operating Officer · Essays & perspective
Portrait of Vanessa Ellis
Vanessa Ellis
Chief Operating Officer · United States · Global perspective

A selected perspective

Operating models3 min read

The hand-off is often the operating problem

Functions can meet their own targets while customers experience delay between them.

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Open to Board appointments · Advisory roles · Speaking invitations

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The portfolio

From idea to consequence.

I

Operating model redesign

An organisation had grown through local improvisation, leaving hand-offs between commercial and delivery teams unclear.

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II

Delivery reliability

Delivery teams were responding to recurring exceptions as if each were new.

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III

Productivity and quality

A productivity programme risked moving costs from one function to another without improving the customer outcome.

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Operations should make dependable delivery repeatable. I make ownership and constraints visible, listen to frontline evidence and improve the whole workflow rather than optimise one function at another's expense.

The journal

Further reading.

  1. 02

    Supply chain3 min read

    Capacity is a commercial conversation

    Demand commitments and delivery capacity belong in the same discussion.

  2. 03

    Execution3 min read

    Productivity without a quality blind spot

    A local cost improvement can create rework elsewhere or move effort to the customer.

On-time delivery
97.6%
Up from 81% across the network
Cost removed
₹1,150 Cr
Without reducing service quality
Sites run
64
Plants, warehouses and service centres
Safety incidents
−48%
Over three operating years

Beyond the page

The record behind the perspective.

In the boardroom

  • Harrow & Vale IndustriesIndependent Director · 2023 — Present
  • The Manufacturing Skills CouncilAdvisory Board Member · 2020 — Present

Recognition

  • Operations Leader of the YearThe Operations Excellence Awards · 2024
  • Supply Chain Resilience AwardCapital & Governance Quarterly · 2022

In conversation

  • “From 81% to 97% on-time without a single new plant”The Operations Excellence Journal · 2025
  • “What boards should see in an operations review”The Boardroom Review · 2024
  • “Episode 109 — Keeping the promise to customers”The Leadership Ledger podcast · 2023
Turns ambition into an operating system people can actually run.
Lars EriksenChief Executive, Harrow & Vale Industries
The full record ↗

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Write to Vanessa Contact page

office@vanessaellis.example