In this exclusive interview with CanadianSME Small Business Magazine, Nana Obeng, Founder and Fractional COO at HIGHPOINT Management Consulting, shares her expert insights into helping women-led businesses in health, wellness, and consumer products scale with structure, without the chaos. With over 15 years of experience across engineering, corporate strategy, and entrepreneurship, Nana’s approach helps business owners transform operational overwhelm into long-term growth. She discusses how small and medium-sized businesses can navigate the complexities of scaling, offering practical strategies and mindset shifts that allow leaders to build sustainable, high-performing teams. Nana’s commitment to clarity, accountability, and strategic leadership empowers businesses to thrive without burning out their teams or founders.
HIGHPOINT provides fractional services for women-led small businesses, with a specialization in the health and wellness sector. What unique operational challenges do these businesses face, and how does your approach address them?
While the fundamentals of operations – clarity, consistency, and accountability – apply across all businesses, women-led businesses often face unique execution challenges. Many women owners, CEOs and founders in this space start with passion but rely on informal support systems that don’t scale – friends, family, or under-trained hires – which lead to stalled growth.
My approach addresses this by “professionalizing” the backend: building systems, roles and rhythms that work without the founder/CEO/Owner having to do everything or micromanage, allowing them to lead instead of constantly reacting. This approach begins with a thorough review of the entire business including human resources and structure, business model (sales strategy and distribution channels) to financial performance and health. It’s a combination of interviews and process review to then categorize and prioritize the gaps to be filled. The tools and skills I use come from my analytical background, professional and entrepreneurial experience to bring balance in developing a strategy and plan.
As a Fractional COO, you help stabilize operations and prepare companies for growth or acquisition. Can you share a recent example where your interventions led to a significant transformation for a client?
One client – a physical product business – was struggling with inconsistent product delivery which ultimately impacted the gross profit. To address it, a full operational review was conducted, examining every part of the process: workflows, staffing capabilities, team commitment, and the financial resources available to support change.
From there, we built a realistic, phased improvement plan in collaboration with finance and the owner. Execution required close partnership with HR, as the rollout involved not just process updates but a full change management effort – shifting both how work was done and how the team thought about their roles.
It wasn’t an overnight fix. But with clear communication, structured accountability, and ongoing support, the results came. Delivery stabilized, performance improved across departments, and, importantly, the frontline team felt more confident and valued due to the transparency and clarity they received.
Sometimes the first response is to work harder and apply pressure on teams to produce when in actuality, a holistic review and implementation is required to get to the root cause and course correct.
Many small business owners struggle with prioritizing tasks and aligning their teams. What strategies or frameworks do you recommend to help SMBs boost productivity and maintain focus as they scale?
One of the most effective ways to boost productivity and alignment is to start with clarity – clear roles, responsibilities, and accountability structures. When everyone knows what they own (and what they don’t), decision-making speeds up and things stop falling through the cracks.
From there, centralize visibility. Whether it’s a dashboard, a shared scorecard, or regular status meetings, having a single source of truth for goals and progress keeps the team focused and aligned.
And finally, don’t just chase top-line revenue. Track the right metrics and KPIs – like gross profit, client retention rate, and customer acquisition cost. These numbers tell you what’s really going on behind the scenes. Revenue is loud, but the real story lives in the margins.
A combination of these things will serve as a continuous reminder of the priorities and help the leader to make sound decisions that support business growth.
You bring a unique blend of strategic guidance and thought partnership to your work with entrepreneurs. How does this approach benefit your clients, and what mindset shifts do you find most transformative for small business leaders?
Often, small business leaders already have the answers – they just need the right space and the right questions to bring them to the surface. My approach blends strategic guidance with thought partnership: part strategy, part mindset work. It’s like therapy for your business, minus the couch.
This combination helps clients not only solve immediate problems but also reconnect with their instincts and step more fully into leadership. One of the most powerful mindset shifts I see is moving from scarcity to strength – recognizing what they already have: traction, vision, grit. Many are further along than they realize. With the right support, they move from reactive to intentional, making decisions from clarity and confidence. There’s real momentum – and they can build on it.
Finally, what advice would you share with Canadian small and medium-sized business owners looking to build resilient, high-performing operations in today’s competitive landscape?
Be disciplined about your operations. Resilient, high-performing businesses aren’t built on guesswork – they’re built on systems that are consistently reviewed and refined.
Continuously assess all parts of your operation – from delivery and team performance to client experience and financials. This gives you a clear, objective view of what’s working, what’s not, and where to focus next.
When you treat operations as a growth driver – not just a back-end function – you’re able to make steady, strategic improvements that position your business to scale. It also helps you benchmark against competitors and stay aligned with what your customers actually need and want.
