The Runway Collective | Fractional COO & Executive Advisory

THE GAP

Most growing companies aren't short on ambition. They're short on operating capacity.

Every decision still routes through you.

Delivery is eating the calendar. You are the operating system, and the business can only move as fast as your week allows.

Nothing scales because nothing repeats.

The work gets done because a few people carry it in their heads. Every engagement is rebuilt from scratch, and hiring more people just multiplies the versions.

New tools and processes don't stick.

You've rolled out software, templates, new ways of working, AI included. The demos looked great. Within a month, the team was back to the old way.

THE DIFFERENCE

Process first. People designed in. AI on purpose.

I start where an operator starts: with the work itself. How it flows, where it breaks, and what it takes to make it repeatable and scalable.

Then the people. Roles, skills, and ownership designed to run the process, so your team works with the model instead of around it. Sometimes that means new hires. More often it means reprioritizing the people you have and building the skills the work now demands.

Only then, AI. Together with you and your leadership team, we decide what agents should carry, what stays human, and what AI will not touch. Then we build, intentionally. Tools stick when the process and the people are ready for them.

This is never about replacing people. In a high-touch business, your people are why clients stay. Agents belong behind the scenes, carrying the repeatable work, so your team has more time for the work only people can do.

That order is the difference. The result is people and AI agents operating as one team, by design.

It isn't new to me, it runs back to a dual degree in Computer Science and Sociology: systems on one side, people on the other. I've been merging them ever since.

HOW IT WORKS

One motion, four phases. The same discipline every time.

Map the work

Where the hours go, how the work flows, and what it costs you today.

Redesign the work

What stays human, what goes to agents, and where the two work side by side. Quality gates built in from day one.

Redesign the roles

New responsibilities, new skills, clear ownership. Your team grows into the model instead of working around it.

Run it with you

I stay in your operating rhythm as fractional COO until the new model is yours. Build firsthand, guide the work, teach the team to own it.

WHY ME

The discipline of a 20,000-person operation. The speed of a founder-led firm.

Nearly eighteen years at JetBlue, across three vice president roles: continuous improvement and enterprise PMO, merger integration, and culture and talent. Operations shows you what needs to change. People are how the change holds. My career spans both sides, and AI is the newest layer. I keep my hands on the tools and build agents firsthand, because leaders should understand what they ask of their teams. But building is not the job. Designing the system and teaching your team to own it is. The systems run my own practice every day, are earning adoption at one client, and are being designed into the operating model at another.

20,000+

employees led through culture and talent strategy

37,000

employee combined carrier: I designed the operational and culture integration roadmaps for the JetBlue and Spirit merger

vice president roles spanning operations, merger integration, and culture and talent

1st

centralized Continuous Improvement and PMO function at JetBlue, built from the ground up

IN THE FIELD

A boutique luxury travel firm, where I lead the operational foundation for scale: the operating model, the processes, and the expansion into new service lines and client segments. A customer experience consultancy, where we are building repeatable processes and redefining roles as the business grows, turning delivery into a discipline.

MY OWN PRACTICE

The Runway Collective runs on the systems I build. An agent team handles my research, briefings, and back-office work, overseen the same way I teach clients to oversee theirs.

WAYS TO WORK TOGETHER

Start small. Scale what works.

THE FRONT DOOR

Operating Model Diagnostic

A short, fixed-scope look at how your firm runs: where the hours go, what agents can carry, and what your roles become. You leave with a map and a plan, whether or not we go further together.

THE FULL ENGAGEMENT

Fractional COO

I join your operating rhythm, redesign the work and the roles, build the agent systems, and run the model with you until it holds. Senior operating leadership without the full-time hire.

FOR LEADERSHIP TEAMS

Executive Advisory

For teams that have the operators and need the operating model. Judgment, design, and a steady hand through growth, complexity, or transition.

ABOUT

Katherine Celli. Founder and Principal.

I started in consulting at Deloitte and Ernst & Young, then went inside: nearly eighteen years at JetBlue leading continuous improvement, the enterprise PMO, merger integration, and culture and talent strategy for more than 20,000 people. I led the operational integration roadmap for the JetBlue and Spirit merger, delivered 800+ leader development programs, and helped steer the enterprise COVID response.

I started The Runway Collective because real organizational change is both strategic and human, and because growing firms deserve the same operating muscle the big companies get. The thread runs all the way back: my career began in technology, my degree paired Computer Science with Sociology, and merging the logic side with the people side has been my edge ever since.

Boston College. Lean Six Sigma Black Belt. PMP.

Operate like a company three times your size.