Keryn Gold, OTBi Solutions CEO: “We measure our success by the ROI we generate for our clients.”

With all the technological change and market disruption we’ve been seeing in the world, businesses seek out Keryn Gold, PhD for actionable help on how to best adapt. She empowers leaders and organizations to accelerate strategic initiatives while unleashing the potential of their employees, so they can stay ahead of the curve while achieving a better work/life balance. Keryn partners with clients to both find and implement opportunities for them to improve outcomes while reducing costs, without negative impact to people, product or service quality, and empowers organizations to more effectively innovate, improve engagement and unleash the potential of their employees without taking up undue bandwidth and time her clients are already struggling to find. Her company’s solutions move beyond high-level strategies that may not be implementable, beyond strictly tactical implementation of technical solutions, to prompt and actionable insights that yield rapid, within-weeks ROI and lasting long-term value that benefits and empowers people across the organization – leaders and individual contributors alike.

We had the opportunity to sit down with Keryn Gold, CEO of OTBi Solutions

Q. You’ve worn many hats over your career. What is your mission – what drives you?

My mission is to empower businesses and their people to achieve the seemingly impossible - accelerated success, engaged employees, and enjoying more quality time with their loved ones – without having to clone themselves.

In my past lives as CEO and COO of start-ups, working in venture capital and private equity, and running data science and strategy centers of excellence within Fortune 50 and FAANG companies, I saw the same themes time and time again: demoralized people at all levels of the organization trying to do good, who were handcuffed by organizational structure or suboptimal processes. I came in and drove positive culture change for my people, along with 50x+ ROI for the business, within months. I’m driven by a desire to help and empower as many businesses and people as possible to be the best versions of themselves, not just through advice and high-level strategies, but specific, rapidly-implementable solutions that create win-wins and deliver short, mid, and long-term value that can be seen within weeks.

Q. What are some examples of the transformational value you’ve driven for clients?

Our solutions enable people to gain back time in their already too-busy days, accelerate achievement of their multi-year plans, and uncover hidden savings for measurable rapid ROI. A couple of examples include working with an education technology company to manifest and implement the CEO’s five-year vision within just one year while multiplying their customer acquisition 100x, and establishing new consultative data science divisions at multiple Fortune 50 companies, driving over $10 million in cost savings at each within just six months.

Q. What are your specific service offerings?

We provide a range of consulting services, a subset of which includes: strategic planning and management consulting, data science and AI consulting, cost management and expense reduction, process optimization, procurement and supply chain optimization, talent identification and leadership development, executive coaching, and culture transformation. We address the interrelated challenges that businesses face holistically to enable clients to stay ahead of the curve while achieving improved work/life balance for all. This involves not just mitigating the challenges brought on by change but also capitalizing on the opportunities it enables. From process improvement to strategic innovation, we empower our clients to navigate change in a way that accelerates success by understanding their core needs and the root causes of their challenges, and unblocking them.

Q. Your business model is unique. Can you tell us more about it and why you chose this approach?

Absolutely. It’s success-based. My aim is to forge partnerships based on trust and generate transformational value for clients. If we don’t produce savings without sacrificing quality, we don’t get paid—it’s as simple as that. This approach aligns our interests with those of our clients and ensures that our solutions deliver tangible, measurable value, every time.

Q. We learned you share net engagement revenue 50/50 with those who refer your business. Why do you do this?

My passion is driving positive change within organizations and empowering as many people as possible. Sharing my net earnings 50/50 with those who refer business to me is my way of expressing gratitude for their trust in providing me with expanded opportunities to help others. It’s an unconventional approach in the business world, but it enables us to amplify our impact and aligns with my philosophy of creating win-wins and making sure people know they are truly valued.

Q. You’ve received awards including “10 Most Inspiring Business Women of 2023,” “Top 10 Inspiring Innovators Pushing the Boundaries in Their Industries,” among others. What do you believe are the essential skills for effective leadership, and what advice do you have for budding entrepreneurs and innovators?

Foster trust and work hard to keep it. Doing this requires the ability to deliver meaningful value, every time. Having and articulating a clear vision that addresses real, unmet customer needs, and being adaptable and compassionate are key. Leaders need to effectively respond to the changing needs of their customers and their people, which requires listening and empathy and mechanisms to ensure visibility to what’s happening across the organization so nothing important falls through the cracks. Fostering trust enables more effective collaboration, which enables more rapid innovation and value-generation. Seek to understand the needs of your customers, solve their problems, and foster trust, and you will succeed, together.

Q. We understand you have a forthcoming book, “The Leadership Playbook, Revisited.” What can readers expect from this book?

The book distils over 100,000 hours of my research, testing, and refinement of strategies into explicit implementable tools, systems, and processes I’ve developed and leveraged successfully at startups through FAANG companies. The goal is to synthesize all my learnings over the years without anyone having to work the 100+ hour weeks that I did for much of my career. The book is in the form of bite-sized 1-page “plays” and best practices for how to implement them, along with a companion website to help leaders and organizations achieve the same transformational results we’ve seen with our clients. The book serves as a playbook to empower businesses, at scale, to see how that can have it all - accelerated success, engaged employees, and work/life balance - with only minor modifications to how they operate.

Meet the Founder & CEO of OTBi Solutions

Keryn Gold, PhD empowers businesses to successfully adapt to rapid change, increase efficiency, and innovate without burnout or resorting to layoffs, compromising quality, or having to clone anyone.

She finds opportunities for businesses to improve outcomes while reducing costs, without negative impact to people, product or service quality while improving work/life balance.

Keryn’s work is success-based, so she doesn’t make money unless her clients do, and the majority of her business comes from referrals and repeat clients. She also shares 50% of her net project earnings with those referring her business, in gratitude for their trust in providing her with expanded opportunities to help others.

Clients consider Keryn a “resourceful, perceptive, trusted advisor” who “proactively delivers transformational value with relentless compassion — phenomenally fast.” She’s received numerous awards and accolades throughout her career running startups and consulting groups, working in venture capital and private equity, and leading divisions and centers of excellence at multiple Fortune 50 and FAANG companies, and has a career history delivering multiple-fold first-year ROI to clients in less than 3 months, across industries.

 For Keryn, it’s all about the joy of seeing people achieve what they once thought impossible.

“We empower businesses to improve outcomes and work/life balance while reducing costs, without negative impact to people, product or service quality.”