Vision to Delivery -  
Handled.

The Operator Seat — someone owns the outcome, end to end
Dana Hetté
Fractional Operator & AI Product Builder for founders, CEOs, CTOs, and CPOs of small to medium product companies

You don't have a delivery problem. You have an operator vacuum.

Somewhere between what you decided and what actually shipped, the thread got dropped - and nobody owned picking it back up. I do. Sometimes that means becoming your operational spine: roadmap, team, hiring, the whole delivery layer. Sometimes there's no team yet, and it means I build the thing myself. Either way, you stop being the one holding it together. 25+ years shipping software as an engineer, product leader, and operator means I make the judgment calls myself instead of bringing them back to you.
What does that look like?
Your strategy moves without every decision routing through you first.
The gap between your vision and what ships - closed.
You stop firefighting. You go run your business.
You stop worrying about delivery. Because it's handled.
If your delivery is broken - let's talk.
No frameworks. No BS. Someone who owns the outcome, end to end.
Book a 20-min callNot sure where you stand?

Selected Examples

What owning the outcome end to end actually looks like

From prototype to validated marketplace traction

Revy Autos
Marketplace
0→1
B2C SaaS
GTM
Experimentation
Results
4× increase in listing engagement through a VDP UX overhaul
6× paid conversion uplift through focused onboarding experiments
15% increase in seller registration via onboarding optimization
~4500 new user registrations per month at peak
Challenge
Early-stage marketplace with only a prototype — no traction, no validated funnel, and high risk of building the wrong foundation.
Solution
Joined as the first hire after the CEO, operating as fractional CPO and Delivery Lead to define the product thesis, validate conversion mechanics, and focus early build on revenue-driving bets.

Predictable delivery for a complex marketplace rebuild

Azrieli Digital
Marketplace
Replatform
B2C
0→1
Complex delivery
Results
On-time platform launch
93% on-time releases across delivery cycles
Streamlined development processes and delivery predictability
Modern, scalable marketplace architecture
Challenge
A complex, multi-vendor marketplace with many dependencies — high delivery risk, low tolerance for missteps, and no room for experimentation-by-accident.
Solution
Led product and delivery, defining the execution model, aligning stakeholders, and rebuilding the platform on a scalable composable architecture.

Turned a risky holiday push into a repeatable growth engine

Maisonette
eCommerce
CRO
Experimentation
Analytics
Peak traffic
Results
16% increase in engagement with site filters
2× CVR improvement for gift finder users
10% overall CVR improvement YoY
2% increase in add-to-cart rate
19% increase in site search engagement
Challenge
No product org. Engineering-led decisions. Two months before peak holiday season.
Solution
Led a focused holiday execution that delivered immediate results — then stayed on to install experimentation, clarify product ownership, and help hire the first Director of Product.

Testimonials

Notes from founders, CEOs, and CTOs who trusted me with their most complex delivery challenges.

“In a fast-paced and often ambiguous environment, Dana's leadership was instrumental… Dana's guidance to product and engineering leads on key feature design has not only sharpened our focus but also enhanced our team's ability to deliver with precision… put simply, we could not have done this project without her.”

Jonathan Ben Anat
CTO, Azrieli Digital
in

"What really stands out about Dana is how she keeps everyone focused and motivated, even on complex projects. I'd jump at the chance to take another product to market with her again."

James Hereford
CEO, Pvragon/Revy Autos
in

"Dana immediately hit the ground running on our holiday campaign, distilling the data and having the landing page experience defined and deployed within her first month."

Kyle Rush
CTO, Maisonette
in

"I found in Dana an exceptionally strategic and analytical mind, who deeply understood and managed every dimension of our project. As the cornerstone of our team, she skillfully orchestrated a highly efficient, unified development powerhouse."

Oana Rosca
Product Manager, Azrieli Digital
in

"Dana effectively created and managed our prioritized product roadmap, and even introduced the fundamentals of experimentation to the company. With minimal direction, she helped launch many products that met and exceeded many of our team’s OKRs."

Courtney Kendall
Head of Product, Maisonette
in

Who I Am

A systems thinker, allergic to inefficiency.

I graduated university in 1999 with a degree in computer science, and I've been building software (and figuring out why things don't ship) ever since.

Over 25 years across real estate, travel, automotive marketplaces, luxury e-commerce, and now AI-native products, I've sat in a lot of different seats: software engineer, PM, CPO, delivery lead, Chief of Staff. What I've noticed is that the seat that matters most, the one between the vision and the thing that ships, tends to sit empty. I call that gap the Operator Vacuum.
Most careers fork. You go tactical and spend your days on delivery, or you go strategic and get rusty on the details. I never picked a road. I take the strategy as it's set and work out what it means day to day, a step back from the engineers in the weeds. I call it a little Goldilocks zone: close enough to the work to see what's really happening, far enough back to see how it all fits. It's the connective tissue between what you decided and what ships.
AI hasn't changed why delivery breaks - it's made the break worse. Teams can generate more than anyone can actually judge, and the gap between what's decided and what's understood widens faster than it used to. I call that the Agentic Fog: it compounds the Operator Vacuum instead of fixing it. I've built the agentic systems - custom workflows, automated reporting, hands-off program management - that close that gap, including leading an agentic-first platform rebuild as Chief of Staff and building AI-driven workflow systems for a medical device company. It's brought my engineering roots full circle: the first principles that mattered early in my career matter just as much now, and now that non-developers can build software, closing that gap is exactly the kind of problem I'm built for.
My CV shows a variety of titles, but the pattern is the same: I'm brought on to solve a specific thing, and as a systems thinker with a product-minded approach, I identify the underlying issues and become the operational spine - whether that means embedding in your team or building solo when there isn't one yet. Put someone in the Operator Seat, and this is what happens.
Owning the outcome - end to end.

How I Work

One seat, with a way in and a way out.

The Operator Read

Diagnostic
Fixed scope
2-3 weeks

Before anyone commits to anything bigger, I find out where things break down between what you decided and what ships, and who, if anyone, is holding it together.

When
  • You're still the bottleneck, even though you've delegated the work
  • You've tried a new tool, a PM hire or more process, and it didn't stick
  • You want a straight answer before committing to an ongoing engagement
Focus
  • Who actually owns what, versus who everyone assumes owns it
  • Where decisions stall, get revisited or bounce back to you
Impact
  • A plain read of where things stand, and what I'd do about it
  • An explicit list of what not to do

The Operator Seat

Fractional
Ongoing
AI-native teams

I sit between your strategy and the people executing it. I take what you've decided, turn it into this week's decisions, and keep everyone moving in the same direction - AI-native builds included.

When
  • Strategy is set, the team is busy, and everything still routes through you
  • Nobody owns the gap between what's planned and what ships
  • Direction, priorities or ownership keep getting revisited
Focus
  • Turn strategy into clear decisions, ownership and a working rhythm
  • Set clear guardrails, then trust the team to decide inside them
Impact
  • The machine runs. You lead instead of firefight.
  • Decisions stop routing through you first.

Operator On Call

Advisory
After the Seat
Light touch

Once the seat is handed over, you keep a direct line to me for the calls that sit on the other side of a guardrail.

When
  • We've worked together and the handover is done
  • You want a sounding board without a full engagement
  • Something new comes up that needs a second set of eyes
Focus
  • Leadership sounding board
  • The judgment calls your team escalates
Impact
  • The structure we built keeps holding
  • Help is one message away, without starting a new engagement

If you suspect your delivery layer is broken, let's find out together.

Book a short, no-commitment clarity check to understand the situation and whether it makes sense to go further.
Book a 20-min callPrefer async? Send context first →

Common Questions

What does a fractional operator actually do? →Do you build AI products yourself? →Why won't hiring a PM fix this? →How do engagements work? →Can we try this before committing? →
Read all the questions →