McKim & Co. · An operations advisory practice

Building the operational foundation that makes AI investments pay off.

What I do

Two kinds of work.

Direct operational leadership — interim or project-scoped. I step in and run it: post-close stabilization, post-merger integration, margin recovery, scale-up.

AI operational readiness — I map the gaps in workflow documentation, compliance posture, infrastructure maturity, and cost exposure, and close them before they become failures inside an automated system. The work produces SOPs your team can run, governance your board can read, and automation that does not depend on institutional memory. When the engagement ends, the operation works. That is the standard.

How I work

Every engagement starts with a written intake — no discovery theater, no exploratory calls before I know what I’m looking at. A fixed-scope proposal follows within 48 hours.

If the work does not fit, you will hear that directly, along with a recommendation that does. For AI-readiness work, the free assessment comes first. For interim and integration leadership, it starts with a conversation — no assessment required.

The Five Phases for AI Integration

A sequence built on a career of results.

Every engagement follows the same sequence, built around one standard: the operation works when I leave.

Assess

Four-axis readiness scoring. Shadow AI audit. Insurance gap review. The scorecard that tells you what is ready, what needs work, and what carries risk if you move now.

Clean

Undocumented workflows mapped. Inconsistent handoffs resolved. Knowledge moved from people into process. The work that makes automation possible without inheriting the mess.

Automate

AI assistants and workflow automation deployed against clean, documented processes. Priority set by the readiness assessment — not by what a vendor is selling this quarter.

Control

AI usage policy. Data-handling rules. Model and tool inventory. Governance that survives a personnel change, an audit, or a board question at 7 AM.

Scale

Internal owners. Dashboards. Quarterly review cadence. The operation no longer depends on McKim & Co., on you, or on whoever holds the institutional memory this week.

The principal

Mike McKim — engineering-trained, operator by career.

Engineering-trained, I moved into operations and spent my career running the regulated, multi-site organizations my own systems had to live in - so the playbook here is how I work, not a framework I picked up. It's the same instinct that rebuilt a failing CMS into one that held past 12,000 units in four months: fix what's broken before you try to scale it.

Founder

mike@mckim-co.com

Built

One of the first VOIP gateways ever deployed commercially — plus CMS, ERP, and cloud-migration work across enterprise systems.

Founded

$140M market cap in one year as VP of R&D, IPVoice.

Integrated

$100M PE-backed enterprise · 125+ locations · 700+ users.

Career arc

Dir. Ops → VP Logistics → Chief of Staff.

The work, by sector

Where this practice was forged

Private equity-backed healthcare distribution

Post-merger integration of a $100M enterprise. $250M inventory under management, 400-vehicle fleet, 125+ locations. Scaled from a single office to 700 enterprise users while restructuring purchasing, equipment repair, and QA.

Regulated wagering and gaming infrastructure

Central operations leadership inside a Churchill Downs pari-mutuel subsidiary. $6M budget, 50-person team, full compliance environment. Designed the SOP backbone that held costs flat through revenue growth.

Public-market B2B digital infrastructure

VP of Operations during a pandemic-era reorganization at a public micro-cap. Stabilized the core platform and stood up the throughput capacity for enterprise-scale conversions in compressed timelines.

Growth-stage digital health

Chief of Staff to the CEO of a venture-backed platform. Took the company from unprofitable to durable margin while expanding the product line and tightening budgeting discipline.

The receipts

A career of doing the work, not talking about it.

>$4M

Annual savings · Post-merger integration

Led integration of a PE-backed $100M healthcare enterprise. Forensic cost analysis alone exceeded synergy targets by 10%.

200%

EBITDA expansion · Churchill Downs subsidiary

Drove the gain in a regulated pari-mutuel environment by consolidating structural overhead — closing an office, a warehouse, and a data center.

24×

Platform scale · 500 → 12,000+ units

Fixed and scaled a core CMS through reorganization, from 500 units past 12,000. The largest single customer’s initial rollout inside that — 1,400 locations, 7,000 devices — converted in four months.

>10%

Margin turnaround · 38% revenue growth

Took a digital health platform from unprofitable to durable margin in two years. Software spend cut 28%. Minimal budget variance across two consecutive years.

-65%

Installation time reduction

Through redesigned training, documentation, and process. Same people. New system.

700+

Enterprise users scaled · 125+ locations

From a single 20-user office. $250M inventory and a 400-vehicle fleet under management — the kind of scale that breaks bad operations.

$140M

Market cap built · VOIP startup, one year

VP of R&D at IPVoice. Helped build one of the first Voice-over-IP gateways in the world and led the investor demonstrations behind the fundraising. Before operations, I built the technology.

600

Cases closed · NMS Communications

Highest case closure rate company-wide over three years. Resolved a hardware failure outside my stated expertise that averted a multi-million-dollar lawsuit — where crisis management became a methodology.

In their words

What colleagues say

I had the privilege of working with Mike over engagements that spanned one to two years — from prototyping through successful deployment. What stood out most was his integrity and genuine drive to see customers succeed.

Mike brought real depth to every engagement. He worked through complex architectural and operational challenges, collaborating closely with internal teams to track down root causes — whether technical misconfigurations, process gaps, or integration failures.

He consistently helped client teams work through complex challenges themselves — he wasn't someone who solved problems in isolation, but someone who built the capability of the people around him. He was meticulous and detail-oriented without losing sight of the outcome.

He was someone I trusted completely and would not hesitate to hire again.

Mark Schlepphorst Solution Security Officer, former colleague

Mike's knowledge of technology and operations spans decades. He has a rare ability to identify gaps in technology infrastructure before they become problems — and to build plans that close them. He also understands how to take a small operation and grow it into something scalable and profitable. What sets him apart is how seriously he takes the risk that comes with AI integration. He'll help you reduce waste, lower your exposure, and make sure your protocols hold up as AI becomes part of how you work.

Syaidah Awls HR Administrator, former colleague