AI Operating Systems | Fractional COO

We turn scattered information into decisions leadership can trust.

Capera Advisory builds the intelligence layer that runs your business, so growing doesn't mean losing sight of what matters.

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Enquiries
charlotte@capera-advisory.com
What We Do

A connected system for founder-led businesses. Your tools, teams and processes working as one.

01
Strategy & Opportunity Mapping

Stakeholder interviews and a report mapping the highest-value opportunities and what to build first.

02
AI Operating System

The systems each team runs on, from front office to back office, built to work together.

03
Dashboards & Reporting

Live visibility into the financial and operational numbers that matter most. What is happening, why, and what to do about it.

04
Workflows & AI

Following how work moves across the team, fixing what is broken, and applying AI where it makes the biggest difference.

How We Work

A system is only as good as the understanding behind it.

Before anything is built, we sit down with the founder to understand what the business is working towards. Those goals become the measure of our work, so success is judged by what changes in the company. Once the system is live, we stay on as an operating partner, maintaining and improving it as the business grows.

Experience

A fractional operating partner that builds the AI, not an AI vendor that has never run a business.

Charlotte Chen Pienaar, Founder & Principal of Capera Advisory, studied Economics at New York University before building a 15-year career across finance (KPMG, Macquarie Capital), technology (500 Startups alumna) and operating roles. She has run businesses as a founder, fractional CEO and fractional COO, so she has sat in her clients' seat and hit the same bottlenecks they face.

Work to date spans hospitality, leisure, manufacturing and consumer brands.

Multi-Location Hospitality · Fractional COO
The numbers sat across separate systems, with no single view.
Leadership now runs the group from one command center, from the morning briefing to the monthly P&L.
Strategy
Ran stakeholder interviews and delivered a due-diligence report mapping the highest-value opportunities.
AI Operating System
Set up a group-wide command center with secure, role-based access and dedicated finance and compliance sections, with HR next.
Dashboards
Built the reporting the business runs on, from daily briefings for each role to P&L and operations analytics, so leadership can look ahead, not just react.
Workflows & AI
Turned the team's manual routines into automated workflows and set up SOPs for accounting and compliance.
Handover
The management team runs the command center day to day, with ongoing technical support from Capera.
Venue Turnaround · Fractional CEO
A venue close to shutting, with weeks to turn it around.
Back to full operation in 12 weeks, with an in-house team now in charge.
Strategy
Led crisis management, designed the strategy for a full operational rehaul, set OKRs and managed vendors through the physical rebuild. Took the brand from unclear direction to a clear brief through to launch.
AI Operating System
Built the venue's operating system from the ground up, bringing each department's processes, knowledge and decisions into one place, from sales and marketing to legal and finance, so new hires could get up to speed through the system.
Dashboards
Built a project dashboard to steer the rebuild, then board reporting and business intelligence, with board governance, from resolutions to minutes, kept in the same system.
Workflows & AI
Put day-to-day operations on documented SOPs and automated workflows, so the venue could run without constant oversight.
Handover
Hired a general manager and coached him to build an in-house team that runs the platform independently.
B2B + B2C Manufacturer · Fractional COO
Two business units growing in different directions.
Two business units aligned on a common direction, working from a single operating system from first sale to board meeting.
Strategy
Worked with the founder to define the direction for the B2B and B2C units, then translated it into OKRs and metrics the leadership team runs against.
AI Operating System
Gave each department a system built around how it works, from a custom-built CRM for sales to a shared knowledge base the team draws on.
Dashboards
Gave the CEO a daily pulse on both sides of the business, and turned board reporting into one process, from the underlying numbers to the finished deck.
Workflows & AI
Automated design for marketing materials, quoting and invoicing, with product design next, so the team scales without adding headcount.
Handover
Trained the team on the new tools and workflows until they were confident running them on their own.
Consumer Brand · Founder & CEO
Building a US brand from Asia, with no local presence.
Taken from launch to national US retail by a lean, remote team.
Strategy
Defined the brand's positioning, product roadmap and channel strategy, sequencing DTC and wholesale to win national US retail accounts without venture funding.
AI Operating System
Built the company on one operating system from day one, connecting front office and back office in a single command center so the remote team worked from one source of truth.
Dashboards
Built dashboards tracking the business from product development and supply chain through to marketing and financial performance, so the team could see where things stood at a glance.
Workflows & AI
Designed how work moved between the team and outside partners, from manufacturers and suppliers to retail accounts, so the team stayed lean as the business grew.
Leadership
Led a remote team across time zones with shared direction and clear ownership.

"Chaos to clarity at extraordinary speed."

"Charlotte brings a rare combination of C-suite thinking and operator-level execution, with an ability to take in complexity and volume at speed, under pressure, without losing her drive for results."
Board Member, Anonymous
Limited Availability

Start a conversation

Engagements begin with a fixed-fee strategy and opportunity mapping phase, so you know the scope and the cost before anything is built. You don't need to know where AI fits yet. Working that out is what the first conversation is for. We take on a limited number of engagements at a time.