The Structure Behind Growth

"In complex ecosystems, growth depends less on bold ideas and more on how well stakeholders work together. Structure is not restrictive. It is what makes collaboration possible."
—Jenny Kelley, Fractional CRO & Co-founder, Synthesis RevOps

The Structure Behind Growth

We often talk about growth as if it arrives through a breakthrough. A new program. A new incentive. A bold announcement.

Those moments matter. But sustained growth rarely hinges on a single decision. More often, it depends on whether multiple moving parts are coordinated well enough to carry an idea from vision to execution.

A business expands when infrastructure, approvals, capital, and operational capacity move forward in concert. A regional initiative gains traction when public institutions, nonprofit intermediaries, and private partners understand both their role and the sequence of work required. When those elements drift out of alignment, even strong ideas lose momentum.

That pattern shows up consistently across sectors.

In manufacturing, production plans falter when commitments outpace capacity or regulatory realities are addressed too late. In nonprofit ecosystems, promising initiatives stall when funding cycles, program design, and reporting expectations are not aligned from the outset. In regional economic development work, progress slows when communication between mixed stakeholder groups is unclear or when processes for working together are implied rather than defined.

The common thread is not ambition. It is structure.

Translating Vision Into Coordinated Action

My work has spanned both vision and structure. I have helped shape strategy and creative direction, and I have also spent significant time translating that vision into coordinated action.

For Forest City Food Collective, that meant guiding a full organizational realignment. Rebranding from Oberlin Food Hub into a broader regional identity was only part of the shift. The deeper work involved aligning CRM infrastructure with real sales and partnership pipelines, integrating marketplace logistics with communication strategy, and clarifying how food access, wholesale distribution, and fundraising efforts fit together rather than operate in parallel. The goal was not more activity, but greater coherence. Marketing, operations, development, and distribution working from a shared structure rather than separate tracks.

At Manufacturing Works, the focus has been different but related. The work has supported a long-standing, employer-driven workforce organization in strengthening how its programs, employer engagement, and communication systems reinforce one another. That includes designing clearer engagement pathways, aligning initiatives with manufacturers’ realities, and building digital infrastructure that reflects how manufacturers collaborate in practice rather than in theory.

In both cases, the work unfolds within a broader regional ecosystem that includes municipal priorities, community development organizations, manufacturers, funders, and local businesses. Clear communication across mixed stakeholder groups is not optional. Defined processes for collaboration, documentation, and follow-through are what allow cross-sector efforts to move from aspiration to measurable progress.

As ecosystems grow more complex, the connective structure becomes more important, not less.

Where Structure and Public Priorities Meet

In Cleveland, much of this work unfolds within a tightly connected ecosystem of city departments, community development corporations, nonprofit intermediaries, manufacturers, and small businesses.

Organizations like Forest City Food Collective and Manufacturing Works operate alongside broader economic development efforts, initiatives, and strategies. Their effectiveness depends not only on strong programs, but on clear communication across mixed stakeholder groups and defined processes for working together.

From that vantage point, it becomes clear how much sustainable and resilient growth relies on coordination between public institutions and the nonprofit and private partners working alongside them. When expectations are explicit and collaboration is structured rather than improvised, progress feels steadier and more achievable.

When structure is strong, growth becomes something that can be stewarded rather than hoped for.

Did you know the term “economic development” didn’t become widely used in the United States until the mid-20th century, when cities began formalizing efforts to coordinate land use, infrastructure, workforce, and industry? Growth has always required structure. We just gave it a name.

A Broader View of RevOps

Revenue operations is often reduced to sales optimization. In practice, it is about alignment across communication, development, and delivery.

Marketing, or communication, sets expectations. Sales, or development, builds commitments. Operations delivers on the promise. When those functions are disconnected, trust erodes. When they are aligned, organizations move with clarity.

That same lens applies in economic development contexts. Attraction efforts, partner engagement, and internal approvals must be coordinated with operational realities and long-term delivery capacity. Clear documentation, transparent communication, and shared visibility into process reduce friction between departments and across stakeholder types.

This is not about accelerating growth at any cost. It is about ensuring that what is promised can be delivered and that collaboration is structured rather than improvised.

If your strategy is strong, but execution feels fragments, let's fix the structure. Contact us.