Building the company around the product

The situation

I joined Keyko when the company was still a small team of roughly seven people. The product and commercial opportunity were moving quickly, which meant the organisation around them had to catch up without slowing the company down.

Fast growth can conceal fragile foundations. Hiring, legal structure, compliance, stakeholder relationships, investment decisions, and internal communication all become product problems when they are left unresolved.

What I did

As Head of Operations, I worked across the company rather than inside one narrow function. I built the team and operating processes, established the legal entity, managed discussions between key stakeholders, and identified legal and compliance risks before they became expensive problems.

I also ran the product incubator, helping decide where the company should invest, which industries were worth exploring, and what outcomes would justify continued development.

The role demanded the kind of altitude switching that defines my work: enough detail to catch a red flag, enough distance to understand how it affected the company, and enough trust across the team to act on it.

The outcome

Keyko grew from 7 to more than 55 people in eighteen months. I later led investor relations through Nevermined’s €3M seed round.

The experience proved that I can operate beyond the first version and support a company through rapid growth. It also sharpened my preference. My strongest contribution is building the structure that makes growth possible, especially when the product is moving faster than the organisation around it.