About the principal
You already know what’s broken. You’re tired of carrying it. And you’re afraid that hiring someone will be either expensive theater or a long-term commitment you can’t escape. That’s the room I walk into. I do the work that gets you out of it, and I leave when it holds.
The work
Born in Port Arthur, raised in Missouri City, with family roots in Louisiana. I worked restaurants through school at the University of Texas, where I graduated a six-time University Honors student and a Bank of America Scholar. By the time I left Austin, I had spent enough years inside small businesses to know how the math works.
I founded Team Hiploch in 2003 and have run it ever since, across nine industries. The clients range from Hall of Fame athletes to nationally recognized cultural figures. A flagship public university is a current client, and some engagements work under disclosure.
Capability
Most fractional operating partners bring one or two. Top to bottom, in altitude order.
I see the gap before the team does and name the problem so the room can act. Where the business sits in its category, what it stands for, how it gets named. The positioning is the spine.
I find the audiences already half-loyal and the adjacencies left unactivated, then specify the platform: what it must be, what it holds, how the parts reinforce each other.
Valuations, WACC, NPV, projections, scenario modeling, cash flow. I read a P&L the way an operator does and a model the way a CFO does.
I build the structure the work runs through: the roles, how decisions flow, the second layer of leadership that lets the business scale past the owner.
I run press and institutional relationships when the work calls for it, mostly by handing the spotlight to the people the platform is meant to elevate.
I read what is being built, wireframes, code, design, copy, judge whether it will hold, and keep the build honest to the strategy.
I make the introductions the business needs. Twenty-three years across nine industries means there are rooms I can get the business into. The network compounds with the years.
On my own account
I have founded and run my own ventures, including a Houston restaurant association I built into a chamber of dues-paying members, and smaller ventures across adjacent categories. I know what the math looks like from inside, what the supplier conversation feels like, and what the morning after a hard month asks of you.
Education
University of Texas graduate. Executive MBA candidate at the McCombs School of Business, class of 2027. The next step is a doctorate in the economics of marketing. What I am after is the economics underneath brand decisions, not only the practice of them. Continuing study is part of how the work stays sharp.
The practice
C. Wayne Bush, Operating Partner. One chair next to the owner's, and the work that fills it. The relationship is the deliverable. It is for the operator who knows the chair beside theirs is open, and wants the right person in it.
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