Most people treat operations like a back-office problem. Kerstin Lynam learned the opposite the hard way: thirty-plus years running medical research nonprofits, including a run as CEO of the Lundquist Institute, where the gap between a working ops layer and a broken one decided whether the mission happened at all.

She joins Katie and Maria for a conversation startup founders will recognize immediately, even though the setting is nonprofit. We get into why most charts of accounts are over-engineered, how to design budget reports that finance and program teams can actually read together, what an excellent board does that a passable board never will, and when the right call is to shut a program down (and why most leaders flinch). Kerstin also walks through the line she lives by: if you do not have trust, you have nothing.

Plus the published research she ran to measure something everyone told her could not be measured: the emotional impact of a pediatric cancer photography class.

If you are scaling a company, this is the shortcut to lessons earned over decades.

Key topics: nonprofit operations, chart of accounts, finance and operations alignment, board management, lean huddles, breaking down silos, measuring qualitative impact, startup operations, COO playbook

Hosts: Katie Whitcraft and Maria Pienaar
Guest: Kerstin Lynam
Want smarter ops? Visit scalespark.ai

Which comes first—process or roles? It’s the chicken-and-egg question every growing company faces, and most get it wrong.

In this episode of Ops or Die, hosts Maria Pienaar and Katie Whitcraft of ScaleSpark sit down with Belle Walker, founder of Belleview Consulting, to challenge the framing entirely. Belle brings a mechanical systems engineering background to operations strategy, and she argues that the real answer isn’t “one before the other”—it’s an iterative loop where both must evolve together.

The conversation digs into real-world case studies: a nursing staffing company that spent weeks trying to document an onboarding process before realizing nobody actually owned it, and a mobile carrier whose bloated 10-screen signup flow was redesigned to three screens—driving a 30% increase in signups overnight.

Along the way, the trio tackles red flags that signal broken ops thinking (like defaulting to what’s “easy” instead of what’s impactful), the dangerous gap between titles and actual roles, and why the word “just” should set off alarm bells in any operations conversation.

Whether you’re a founder building your first ops function or a seasoned COO navigating rapid growth, this episode gives you a practical lens for diagnosing whether your friction is a role problem, a process problem, or—most likely—both.

Key Takeaways:

– Process and roles are iterative, not sequential—start where you get the most leverage

– Use the STOP framework (Stop, Think, Organize, Plan) before jumping into operational changes

– Titles don’t define roles—unclear ownership is one of the fastest paths to dysfunction

– Involve stakeholders early; the people living in the process see problems leadership can’t

– Revisit your ops structure every 6–12 months as you scale

Guest: Belle Walker, Belleview Consulting – belleviewconsulting.com

Hosts: Maria Pienaar & Katie Whitcraft

Theme music by Min Tran | Editing by Troubleshoot Productions

Learn more at scalespark.ai

In this episode of Ops or Die, hosts Katie Whitcraft and Maria Pienaar sit down with Sean Flynn, Chief Legal Officer & Co-Founder, and Stacy DeLong, Director of Marketing at SingleFile, to talk about the least sexy topic in startups -and why ignoring it can literally kill your company.

Compliance isn’t optional. It’s mandatory, recurring, and unforgiving. And no, AI can’t magically clean up the mess after you’ve missed filings, lost good standing, or accidentally dissolved your company on paper.

In this episode, we unpack:

• Why “small-c compliance” is quietly one of the biggest existential risks to scaling companies
• How missed filings can block financings, void contracts, or get your company name taken
• The real cost of fines, reinstatement, and lost momentum (spoiler: it’s not just money)
• Where AI actually helps—and where humans still have to step in
• Why compliance chaos usually starts as “just one more thing” on someone’s job description
• How centralized systems, tech-enabled services, and expert oversight prevent avoidable disasters

This is a candid, real-world conversation about operations, risk, and why founders can’t afford to treat compliance as an afterthought—especially in a remote, multi-state, AI-powered world.

Because operations isn’t sexy…until it saves your ass.

Visit SingleFile at www.singlefile.ai, or call 1-800-391-9869.
Stacy DeLong LinkedIn
SingleFile LinkedIn

ScaleSpark Website: www.scalespark.ai
Katie Whitcraft LinkedIn
Maria Pienaar LinkedIn