Transformation & value-creation operator · NZ / AU / SEA / US
Finding the constraint.
Building the capability.
Creating lasting value.
Operating-partner, interim and permanent leadership mandates for sponsors, lenders and boards — where a business is cash-tight, growth has stalled, or an exit is approaching.
Lenders and sponsors bring me in when the cost of getting it wrong is the loan, the equity or the exit. I go in on the ground, find the real constraint, and drive a measurable EBITDA and exit-readiness plan. Implementation, not a report.
Available now · NZ, Australia and remote
01 — The premise
Cash pressure is rarely a cash problem. A people problem is rarely a people problem.
Most interventions fail because they treat symptoms. Revenue is down, so leadership pushes sales. Delivery slips, so they add headcount. The real constraint — the broken operating rhythm, the report nobody trusts, the decision with no owner — stays untouched, and the business snaps back the moment the pressure comes off.
Most of what a stalled business loses, it loses quietly — in working capital that never comes back, decisions that sit waiting, margin that erodes a point at a time. None of it arrives as a line item, which is why it can run for years without anyone calling it a crisis.
I work the other way: diagnose the system, find the binding constraint, fix that first. The outcome is not a strategy document. It is a stronger business.
02 — Who I work with
Sponsors & investors
Private equity, family offices, search funds and independent sponsors. Portfolio-level support to assess opportunities, accelerate value-creation initiatives and strengthen management execution — through to permanent portfolio-company leadership where the fit is right.
Lenders & capital providers
Hands-on intervention where cash pressure, weak reporting or operational underperformance needs an independent operating view and a credible recovery plan.
Boards & owners
Interim or advisory operating capacity, reducing founder dependency and building the reporting infrastructure that shows up in diligence.
03 — Mandates
Portfolio Value Creation
Finding and delivering the initiatives most likely to move earnings, cash and enterprise value. Across several companies the same diagnostic produces comparable findings — one operating view of the portfolio rather than five unrelated reports.
Turnaround & Stabilisation
Hands-on leadership when cash, delivery or visibility is failing: protect cash, find the constraint, build the recovery bridge.
Interim & Permanent Leadership
CEO, COO or transformation leadership shaped around the mandate, not a consulting package. Engagements can evolve into interim or permanent leadership where a capability gap emerges.
AI-Led Operating Transformation
AI embedded as permanent infrastructure across reporting, strategy and operations — so boards get real-time visibility, decisions get stress-tested in hours, and the business scales without adding headcount.
Where it starts — Constraint Diagnostic, 2–3 weeks. The lowest-commitment way in: on the ground in one company, mapping how work, decisions, information and cash actually move. You get a board-ready brief — the top three constraints, the one that binds, and what resolving each is worth. It either earns a mandate or it doesn’t; the brief is yours either way. Scoping takes one conversation and I can be on the ground inside a fortnight of it.
Mandate, Phase 1 — Stabilise & Diagnose (months 1–3). Immediate risk contained, the system mapped, and the plan built as a hypothesis — tested against the operation, not the boardroom.
Mandate, Phase 2 — Execute & Embed. Ownership installed, visible performance, the EBITDA bridge delivered. Every initiative has an owner, a measure and a commercial rationale.
Shape and cadence. Typically two to four days a month at portfolio level, or two to three days a week inside a single company. Sponsors and boards get a written monthly read — what moved, what’s stuck, what it’s worth — and I sit in the governance meeting where that helps.
Every engagement is scoped as a mandate against a defined outcome rather than billed by the hour: a base fee with performance- and transaction-linked upside, and open to equity or co-invest where alignment matters. Portfolio-level oversight can run on a standing retainer; delivery is always mandated separately.
04 — The Systems Reset
Applied identically across manufacturing floors, global mission organisations and 30+ country networks. The sector changes; the method doesn’t.
Find the constraint.
- Map the system — how work, decisions, information and cash actually move.
- Find the constraint — test the obvious symptom rather than accept it.
Build the capability.
- Redesign the operating model — roles, processes, information flows, decision rights.
- Install visible performance — measures boards and investors can steer by.
- Transfer ownership to management, so improvement continues without me.
Create lasting value.
- Scale or exit — execution quality converted into earnings quality and exit readiness.
05 — Track record
Outcomes from engagements led end-to-end. Detail available in a confidential conversation.
06 — The right fit
X-Altus is most relevant where:
- EBITDA or cash performance is below plan
- the business has outgrown its operating systems
- reporting doesn’t give the board confidence
- sales activity isn’t converting into reliable revenue
- the company depends too heavily on its founder or CEO
- AI consists of disconnected pilots rather than operating capability
- an investment, refinancing or exit event is approaching
Mid-market and larger businesses across NZ/AU — private-equity, family-office, search-fund, independent-sponsor or lender-backed, and owner-led businesses heading toward one of those. MSP/tech, manufacturing, services, consumer/retail, mission/for-purpose.
07 — About
Stephen McCurdy
Turnaround CEO · Value-creation operator · Systems builder
I take underperforming and stalled businesses and make them profitable, sale-ready and no longer dependent on any one person. I read an organisation as a system, find the real constraint behind the numbers, and rebuild the operating model around it — hands-on, on the ground, measured by outcomes rather than reports. I’ve been reading businesses as systems for 20 years — the first one I owned myself.
What makes me different from most operators: I’ve embedded AI as permanent infrastructure across reporting, strategy and operations — so boards get real-time visibility, decisions get stress-tested in hours, and businesses scale without adding headcount.
Including me. That’s the point.
The AI claim, specifically
- I ship AI product, not slideware — founder of QualIntel OS, a SaaS platform for defensible AI-assisted research: product strategy, pricing architecture and subscription economics, built and shipped personally.
- Embedded as infrastructure in a live organisation — AI across reporting, M&E and fundraising for a 30+ country network: real-time board visibility replacing six-week-old reporting, ~150% productivity uplift.
- Commercial proof — an AI-assisted campaign that delivered ~160× digital reach and >USD 100K inside 72 hours.
- The thinking behind it — MBA thesis on executive decision-making under noise (the Executive Signal Management framework).
MBA, University of Waikato (graduating 2026) · Founder, QualIntel OS · Dual NZ/US citizen · Hamilton, New Zealand — on the ground across NZ, Australia, Southeast Asia and the US; remote worldwide.