BREAKAWAYOPERATING GROUP
BREAKAWAYOPERATING GROUP

Breakaway Operating Group. Intelligence to see it.
Precision to solve it.
Discipline to finish it.

Break away. Hold the lead.

Breakaway brings experienced executives into the work with you. We help manufacturers and private equity owners strengthen performance, build capability and deliver results that continue beyond our involvement.

Start a conversation See how we work
Chart: performance declines along the current trajectory, then breaks away at the break point and climbs with Breakaway
80+ yearsof combined operating leadership
Floor to boardroomFrontline crews to Fortune 500 and PE-backed leadership
Manufacturing + PETwo markets, one standard of performance
Who we are

Executives who have carried the responsibility.

Breakaway brings together experienced executives with complementary backgrounds in enterprise operations, organizational capability, large-scale change and business performance.

Our collective experience is the foundation of the business. We understand what it means to carry responsibility, make difficult decisions and remain accountable for outcomes, because each of us has done it inside the business, not from the outside looking in.

We work with organizations to strengthen performance, build capability and deliver results that continue beyond our involvement. We focus on the problems that actually move the needle, and we stay engaged until the work holds.

What clients bring us in for

The questions we are brought in to answer.

Every engagement starts with a decision leadership is already facing. These are the two we hear most.

Productivity

How will we deliver the productivity gains committed in the budget?

Two ways in, depending on where you are starting.

  • Productivity SummitFor organizations starting from scratch. A deep-dive analysis of the operation, leadership aligned on the right projects and a clear roadmap.
  • Productivity ReviewFor organizations that already have a project list. We confirm strategic alignment and scope the work for the projects that matter most.

Either way: fewer, bigger, bolder. The roadmap focuses on the few projects that will move performance most, with clear owners and accountability for the rest. If you want support delivering the big ones, we have the capability to execute alongside your team.

Capital Avoidance

Can we get more from what we already own before spending capital?

A full deep-dive analysis before capital is committed, built around three questions.

  • CapacityAre we getting everything we can from the people and machines we already have?
  • ProductsDo all of these products need to be made?
  • LocationAre products being made in the right plant, or can a plant running below capacity take on the work?

We are operators, not financial advisors. We show you what your operation can actually do, so capital decisions rest on real capacity, not assumptions.

Before you buy capacity, we find it.

From our partners

Reject Every Capacity Request in Your 2027 Capital Plan

Assad Mirza, Founding Partner · October 2026

A two-year payback tests the return. Not the need.
Read the article

For private equity owners, both are available before close or as part of a value creation plan.

What we do

Four connected services. One way of working.

Most breakthrough results sit at the intersection of strategy, people, process and technology. Our services are built to work together, so the fix does not stop at the edge of one department.

Service

Execution

Turn strategy into operational reality.

We work from the plan to the floor and stay with it until the results show up in the numbers.

  • OTIF: unlock your plants' ability to produce the right product at the right time
  • Customized process and system implementation that reduces or eliminates quality incidents at the source
  • Optimized operating cost through lower waste and lower labor cost per unit
Service

Capability

Strengthen the people who make it happen.

Practical leadership and organizational capability at every level, from frontline supervisors and construction leaders to senior executives. This is not simply leadership training. It is strengthening people's ability to lead, make decisions and deliver.

  • Training that creates repeatable, plant-wide execution of standards that hold
  • Identify the gaps that keep your existing standards from delivering optimal results, then close them with proven, current industry methodology
Service

Fractional

Experienced leadership when it matters.

Experienced executive and operational leadership brought directly into the business where additional capability, capacity or accountability is needed, without the time and risk of a full search.

  • Interim and fractional operations leadership
  • Leadership coverage after an acquisition or departure
  • Experienced operators from a vetted network
  • A clear handover to a permanent leader
Service

SocioTechnical

Human in the Loop.

We connect people, leadership, operating systems and technology so the organization functions as one.

  • “New Way” adoption that holds on the floor
  • Daily management, standards and operating rhythm
  • A process to ensure standards hold under pressure
  • Standards built how work is actually performed.
PEOPLE OPERATIONS TECHNOLOGY SocioTechnical
How it fits together

SocioTechnical thinking runs through all of our work.

We design every engagement around people, operations and technology together, because that's where results are won or lost.

Human in the loop

AI in the operation

AI will free more hours than any technology before it, but freed hours only become savings when leaders redesign the work. We keep people in the loop, building AI into daily management so supervisors trust it, operators use it and the results reach the income statement.

How we engage

From the first visit to the day we leave.

Every engagement follows the same path. The scope changes. The standard does not.

01

See it

We start with the business as it is: on site, with the people doing the work, and in the numbers. We find the real problem before we recommend anything.

02

Identify root cause

We focus on the few issues that actually move performance. Every recommendation comes with the plan, the owners and the measures to carry it out.

03

Solve it together

We engineer the “New Way” working alongside your teams where the work happens, not reporting on it from a distance.

04

Make it hold

We leave standards, routines and capability in place so the results continue after we leave. That is how we measure our own work.

We will never hand you a strategy without the plan to execute it.
What you can expect

Candid answers, including the uncomfortable ones.

Experienced people in the work, not only on the proposal.

Scope and measures agreed before we start.

Capability left behind, so you do not need us to keep it going.

Founding partners

The people behind Breakaway.

Between us, we have run plants, distribution operations, major change programs and businesses of our own. Each partner brings a different path to the same standard.

Kait Dinunzio

Kait Dinunzio

Founding Partner

Kait has spent more than 20 years working alongside executive leadership teams on post-acquisition stabilization, operating model design, organizational effectiveness and enterprise-wide change. Her work spans acquisitions and carve-outs, Day One readiness, large-scale enterprise system rollouts and AI-enabled operational intelligence.

Industries: energy and refining, industrial services, construction, manufacturing, technology and agriculture, across North America and Europe. Managing Director of a SocioTechnical practice for a global firm.

Assad Mirza

Assad Mirza

Founding Partner

Assad has spent about 25 years running and strengthening manufacturing operations. Since 2015 he has led Infinity Operational Excellence, working with PE-backed platforms and mid-market and Fortune 500 manufacturers, and advising investors on manufacturing operations and supply chain risk.

Previously: COO and SVP Operations, PLZ Aeroscience. Senior Director of Operational Excellence, Kraft Heinz. VP Operations, Varel International. VP Quality and Lean Six Sigma, Accuride.

Richard Walsh

Richard Walsh

Founding Partner

Richard has owned and run businesses for 35 years and has spent recent years on the floors of manufacturing and industrial services operations. He has diagnosed 16 operations on site, supported operational due diligence on private equity acquisitions, and led a distribution center to first in its network with half the people.

His focus is the layer most firms skip: the frontline supervisors who run every shift. He builds leadership into how a plant runs and measures it on the scorecard: fewer recordables, less scrap, higher output and lower turnover.

Background: Former U.S. Marine. Founder of Sharpened Impact. Bestselling author of three books, including Sharpen the Spear: Lead from the Front and The Invisible Layer. Host of 350 long-form podcast episodes.

Selected experience

Decisions made. Results that held.

Examples from our partners' own operating experience. Client names are withheld.

Third-party logistics

Distribution center turnaround

Challenge
A one-million-square-foot distribution center was running two shifts with high staffing and annualized turnover of 565 percent.
Decisions and actions
Matched staffing to the work, set clear standards for each shift and built frontline leadership that could hold them.
Outcome

In five months the two shifts went from 50 people to 25. The site ranked first for product unloaded over six weeks with half the people and equipment, ending another site's three-year run. Worker per-piece earnings tripled and turnover stopped.

PE-backed multi-plant manufacturer

Resetting labor after the crisis

Challenge
During COVID, plants were staffed above standard and line pay was raised by close to a third to keep lines running. A year later, volume no longer needed the extra hours.
Decisions and actions
Streamlined the work, set standards and put one daily management system in place across the plants. Rather than wait on attrition, leadership redeployed people where it could and restructured where it could not.
Outcome

Pay stayed at the higher level, and labor cost per unit still fell below where it was before COVID. Service got better, and safety, quality and people measures all got better after the restructuring.

Company details and figures altered to protect confidentiality. Directional results preserved.

Large-scale industrial construction

Recovering a major industrial project

Challenge
A remote industrial construction project faced escalating costs, schedule pressure and significant operational risk. Leadership needed to recover the project while managing a complex workforce transition.
Decisions and actions
Supported the leadership team in developing a recovery strategy to restore project execution and schedule performance. Led a risk-based demobilization of approximately 2,000 workers, coordinating personnel accountability, site security, transportation and workforce considerations.
Outcome

Approximately 2,000 workers demobilized in under seven hours, using ground transportation and five aircraft, with zero safety incidents. The site was remobilized within two weeks, and the project went on to reach startup on schedule.

Client, project and contractor identities withheld.

Our values

Operating principles, not slogans.

We've held responsibility.

We understand the consequences of decisions because we've been accountable for them.

We value candour over comfort.

Thoughtful and honest conversations, even when they're difficult.

Relationships are an asset, not a transaction.

Trust, integrity and respect are crucial.

We're willing to get involved.

Experience brought into the work, not just recommendations.

We want to leave organizations stronger.

Sustainable capability and performance beyond our involvement.

Start a conversation

Let’s find your “New Way.”

Efficient production line with operators and automation Productivity
New manufacturing plant expansion under construction Growth
Leader training a team of supervisors on the plant floor Capability

We will listen, ask hard questions and tell you candidly whether we can help. If we are not the right fit, we will say so.

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