Bring us in and we own it end to end — diagnose the metric worth moving, build the fix with AI, drive the change through. Not a deck you're left to implement. Not a dev shop.
Why now
AI resets what it costs to build a capability — and that cuts two ways. Ambitions that used to need a big team and a bigger budget — a new business line, a market you couldn't afford to enter, a process rebuilt from scratch — are suddenly in reach for a lean operator. And the downside: standing still got more dangerous, because your competitors hold the same tools and the gap compounds.
88%
12%
The move we're hired to make
Where almost everyone still is. AI as a personal assistant — drafting, summarizing, one chatbot per desk. Disconnected tools, no line on the P&L.
Where the value is. Automated booking engines, reconciliation workflows, core commercial architecture — AI inside how the business actually runs.
[1] The Great Renovation, Notion (2026). Global study, N = 6,118.
What we do
Every engagement is a mandate to deliver a result — never a deck you're left to implement. The spine is always the same.
Step 01
Identify the two or three problems that actually move the P&L, and define success as a hard, measurable metric — before a line of code exists.
Step 02
The AI-enabled system and the human change around it: operational redesign, training, governance, process.
Step 03
Our name on the outcome. You get a working, scaling system that moves the number — not an advisory recommendation.
One mandate. One owner. One number.
Who we serve
The cut that matters isn't the industry — it's whether you run the business directly or own it through a fund. Either way the job is the same.
You bring us in directly — as a project to deliver a specific result, or as an interim operator to build and run a function. We diagnose the metric, build the fix with AI, and own it.
Deploy us into a portfolio company as an operating partner — a proven operator who builds and scales the fix, with AI native to how the operation works. For the value-creation plan that needs someone to execute it, not advise on it.
Proof
Built and scaled from zero
Ran the Brazilian operation from day one — the team, the supply side of the marketplace, and the launch of the bus vertical.
Built and scaled from zero
Stood up the live-class operation from nothing, then went after retention while volume was still climbing.
New business unit
Built a B2B SaaS line from scratch — proposition, pricing, and the sales motion that carried it.
AI agents in the operation
Put AI agents inside an enterprise booking operation that had been run by hand, and kept them running in production.
Owner, on every line Ithaka
Before the operating years
Three years of strategy and operations consulting under former Booz Allen Hamilton principals — designing a cross-sell and cost programme worth US$20M+ to a 200-person agribusiness sales force, siting and valuing US$350M of new plants for a wood-board manufacturer, and modelling the P&L of a CPG joint-venture breakup against what actually happened. Double promotion, and sole analyst on half the mandates.
Team
An unusual combination of classical management training and deep technical execution. With a Computer Engineering foundation from ITA and an MBA from Chicago Booth, Ricardo works on both sides of the boardroom door — the business case and the system that delivers it.
After starting in strategy consulting alongside former Booz Allen Hamilton partners, he spent over ten years building in the digital world — scaling two B2C country operations from zero and launching three B2B business units. Today the focus is turning AI from an experimental pilot into a reliable P&L driver.
Start
Tell us the number that won't move. We'll come back with what a diagnostic would look like.