What We Do

Two practices

Enterprise Services runs the back office so you can run your company.
Program Operations runs the enabling work the company won and needs to deliver.

ENTERPRISE SERVICES

Three Offerings

Senior executive leadership embedded inside the client's leadership team. Three named offerings, scoped to where the pain actually is. Each is a discrete engagement with its own pricing band, time commitment, and minimum term; they combine under a single MSA when the client needs both senior executive ownership and a fully staffed executive office.

Chief Administrative Officer

The Operating Partner

The CAO seat. Senior ownership of the operational backbone: HR operations, finance and budget execution, contracts and compliance, security and IT, organizational design, and the process maturity that keeps the business running while the CEO and delivery teams focus on winning and executing work. A C-suite role, scoped fractionally, with full accountability for outcomes.

Best for: a founder-led firm whose back office is straining under the win pace. Standard Time: 40 to 160 hrs/mo

Chief of Staff

The right hand

The CEO's operational right hand. We run the front office: cadence management, decision preparation, information flow, board prep, OKR tracking, executive communications, and the special initiatives that have no natural home. The most leveraged seat in any organization, and the one growing companies almost universally get wrong or skip outright.

Best for: a CEO or COO who has become the bottleneck on everything and needs the front office run. Standard Time: 40 to 160 hrs/mo

Office of the CEO

The ecosystem

The full personal staff function around the principal: Chief of Staff, Executive Assistant, Deputy Chief of Staff, communications, strategy, and business management. Distinct from the CAO seat; the CAO runs the company's operational infrastructure, the Executive Office makes the CEO personally effective.

Build: design, build, recruit, and stand up the office, then hand off to the client's permanent team. Six to nine months.
Operate: Tacitus delivers the seats through The Tacitus Network; engagements scale with the size and complexity of the office.

Best for: a principal who needs a real staff apparatus around them, fast.

Bundled Engagement
Operating Partner and Executive Office are commonly delivered together: the CAO owns the company's operational backbone while the Executive Office runs the principal's personal staff function. Bundled under a single MSA, the combined engagement is offered at a discount against the separate retainers.

PROGRAM OPERATIONS

One Seat · Three Shapes

Senior program leadership embedded inside the client's delivery organization. One seat, the Fractional VP of Operations, delivered in three shapes scoped to the situation. Program Operations runs the work the company sells: the programs, the portfolio, the delivery machine that turns won contracts into executed work. It is not project-manager staff augmentation, and it is not a PMO process binder.

Build

Stand Up the Delivery Machine

Stand up the program-management function from scratch: the PMO charter, the delivery cadence, the KPI architecture, and the operating rhythm. Recruit and onboard the internal seats, then hand off and exit.

Best for: a contractor that just won a major program and needs a real delivery operation, fast. Time: 20 to 40 hrs/mo

Run

Operate the Delivery Function

Hold the Fractional VP of Operations seat on an ongoing basis. Own delivery, the PMO, the operating cadence, and the cross-program KPIs. Run the rhythm of business that turns the contract backlog into executed work, on time and on budget.

Best for: a firm with product-market fit and a backlog, but no delivery operation underneath it. Time: 20 to 40 hrs/mo

Recover

Fix the Contract in Trouble

A bounded engagement to fix a specific delivery failure: a red contract, sliding milestones, CPARS recovery, recompete preparation, or a post-award startup that never started. Get in, run the triage, get it back on track, hand it back.

Best for: a program in trouble, with a customer asking questions you would rather not answer. Term: 6 to 12+ months · Posture: Intensive

Works With Enterprise Services
Run and Operating Partner are the two sides of the operating function: Enterprise Services owns the executive operating system, Program Operations owns the delivery operating system. Combined under a single MSA, the engagement carries a 5% to 8% discount against the separate retainers, with one Tacitus Review and one accountable principal across both.

Practice scope

PMO build-out, charter, and governance
Delivery cadence: weekly program reviews, monthly operations, QBRs
KPI and OKR frameworks; portfolio dashboards
Hiring plans and delivery-team structure
Process documentation and standard operating procedures
Customer relationship management (COR/COTR coordination)
Program recovery for red or sliding contracts

How we engage

Every Tacitus engagement is built with the handoff in view. We operate the seat, build the internal capability that sustains the work, and hand the keys back stronger than we found them. Every engagement follows the same path: Review, Embed, Operate, Transition.

01

Review

The Tacitus Review establishes a shared baseline. Two to three weeks. Five domains scored, four findings prioritized, three next steps recommended.

Both sides have a concrete deliverable in hand before any longer engagement is scoped.

02

Embed

We step into the role. Not advisory work. We take the seat, attend the meetings, make the decisions, and own the outcomes.

The embed phase establishes operating rhythm, accountability structures, and the trust required to drive real change.

03

Operate

Ongoing fractional engagement under a defined hours-per-month commitment.

We operate as an integrated member of the client's leadership team, not as an outside resource. Cadence, scope, and reporting are all defined in the SOW.

04

Transition

We build internal capability and hand off to a permanent hire or a self-sustaining system.

The goal is always to make ourselves unnecessary. A successful engagement ends with the client running independently at a higher level than when we arrived.

The Tacitus Review

Diagnostic Entry Point

A two-to-three week, fixed-fee operational diagnostic scored across five domains: Strategy, Planning, Team, Enablement, and Execution. The Review is delivered as a five-domain scorecard, a two-page Output with the bottom line and the findings that matter most, and a 90-minute readout. No hundred-page report, no soft grades. It is the cleanest way to start a conversation with us, and the cleanest way to know whether a longer engagement is the right call before either side commits.

The Tacitus Review is a paid, fixed-fee engagement, not a complimentary assessment. Pricing is scoped at the first conversation and reflects the seniority of the operators delivering it.

Most clients begin here. The Tacitus Review is optional but strongly recommended; it sharpens the scope of any follow-on engagement and frequently surfaces the work the client didn't know to ask for. It also stands on its own as a deliverable.

Why it's worth the spend

Every CEO weighing this is really choosing between three options. Here is where the money goes, and why this one earns it.

Versus the cost of the gap

The gap is already costing you

Growth that outruns its operating structure does not stay quiet. It shows up as slipped milestones, a CPARS ding, a founder buried in back-office work instead of winning, and key-person risk when one person holds the whole operation in their head. A red contract or a botched integration costs a multiple of any engagement fee. You are not paying to add overhead; you are paying to stop a leak you are already funding in delivery risk.

Versus a full-time hire

Senior, without the full-time price tag

A full-time CAO or VP of Operations at this level is a deep six-figure commitment once you load salary, bonus, benefits, recruiting, and ramp; it takes months to land, and it is a fixed cost whether or not the need stays that large. A fractional seat matches the spend to the actual load. You get the seniority now, scoped to what the company needs this quarter, with a defined exit when the need changes.

Versus staff aug and advisors

Ownership, not hours or slides

Staff augmentation gives you hands to point at the problem. Advisors give you a deck and a recommendation. Neither one signs up for whether the thing actually works. Tacitus takes the seat, makes the calls, and owns whether the operation runs. The engagement is built to end with your own team running it, so you are buying a capability that stays, not a vendor you cannot leave.

THE TACITUS NETWORK

How We Staff

The Tacitus Network is the firm's affiliated group of cleared senior operators. It is the staffing layer behind both practices. The firm's Partners, Managing Directors, and Principals hold seats directly; when an engagement needs named delivery beyond them, it is filled from the Network. Membership is invitation-based, not open enrollment.

Who's in the Network

Former agency Staff Directors, Chiefs of Staff, senior front office leaders, and program operations executives with active clearances and operational pedigree across the IC and DoD. Network members are vetted, briefed on the firm's delivery standards, and matched to engagements on a case-by-case basis.

How the Network is used

Network members deliver alongside or in place of the firm's leadership, depending on the engagement. Across Enterprise Services, they staff the Operating Partner, Right Hand, and Executive Office seats; in Program Operations, they add named senior capacity where an engagement calls for it.

PROJECT-BASED ENGAGEMENTS

Defined Scope

Not every need is a retainer. We also take on defined-scope engagements within either practice for companies with a specific, bounded operational challenge.

Organizational design and restructuring plans
M&A target operational evaluations
Post-acquisition integration playbooks
Targeted operational assessments outside The Tacitus Review framework

Who we serve

Growth-stage and rebuilding IC and DoD contractors with selective engagements in adjacent national security and federal services markets.

Company size

Firms that need executive infrastructure, but are too small for a full-time C-suite at every function.

Growth stage

Rapid growth that has outpaced organizational infrastructure. Growth without structure creates delivery risk and performance degradation.

Ownership transition

Recently PE-backed, acquired, or undergoing ownership change. PE firms demand operational rigor. Acquirers need integration leadership.

Leadership gap

Strong technical founder who recognizes the need for CAO-level operational infrastructure support. Technical founders excel at winning work. They need help building the delivery organization.