SEP 2026
September 2026 Newsletter
Six New Colleagues and What Changed in 2026
Hello From Mann Partners
As the summer ends, it is worth taking stock of how much has changed since the beginning of 2026. In January the conversation was headcount reductions and stalled AI productivity. Nine months on, we have landed somewhere more interesting: operating model change and technology adoption turn out to be the same problem, which is changing human behavior at scale.
That is what clients are asking us to help them do, from global public companies to high-growth mid-market businesses. Technology delivers the efficiency and the scale. The value shows up in the harder part — carrying complex stakeholder groups through the transformation itself.
Meeting that demand has required us to scale our own team and build out our advisory board. Here is who joined us, what our advisors have been saying, and where to find us this fall.
Six New Advisors And Team Members
We are building with high-performing experts who will both serve clients and help us scale the firm.
David Cohen, Advisory Board — Partner and Managing Director at Kelso & Company, where he leads the Human Capital function. Thirty-five years building and scaling organizations at American Securities, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and GE, beginning with a Peace Corps posting running a rural development organization in Botswana.
Todd Christian, Partner — Thirty years turning strategy into results across 35-plus companies, including Fortune 100s, with leadership roles at Accenture, AlignOrg Solutions, and Lowe's. He has led enterprise transformation from the inside and advised it from the outside, and served nine years on the board of the Organization Design Forum.
Rebecca Ellis, Strategic Advisor — Most recently a Principal at AlignOrg Solutions, leading design and operating model work for Fortune 500s, PE portfolio companies, and mission-driven organizations. Earlier roles inside Allegion, Ameren, Edward Jones, and the Federal Reserve mean she has been on the receiving end of a redesign as well as the delivering end of one.
Olivia Sabbagh, Associate Principal — Six years inside consumer goods across supply chain, R&D, and HR, then Accenture's Operating Model and Organization Design practice. She knows how a design is meant to work on paper and how it feels on the floor when it doesn't.
Connor Alexander, Senior Consultant — Operating model design, commercial transformation, and AI-enabled growth, following five years at Accenture leading engagements across communications and media, healthcare, public service, industrials, and financial services.
Nina Danforth, Marketing & Business Development Manager — A background in financial services and alternative data, building relationships and driving growth strategy from the inside. Now she's doing the same for Mann Partners, making sure the market hears our story as clearly as our clients feel our work.
Two Advisory Board Members On The Future of HR Podcast
David Cohen on what private equity knows about talent
David makes the case that the human capital partner's job in private equity is to unlock value through people rather than run HR for the firm itself. He talks through what it takes to succeed as a CHRO in a PE-backed company, why value creation comes down to org design, the right people in the right seats, and senior team performance, and how the “bullseye” model helps identify the right senior leader. Worth an hour if you have ever watched a talent call get made a year later than it should have been.
Amy Kates on what actually works in organization design
Amy argues that the purpose of organization design is to design human behavior at scale, the idea at the top of this note is hers as much as ours. She covers the six business problems leaders are really trying to solve through design, why matrix organizations are built for productive conflict and how to manage it, and the role HR should and should not play when a redesign begins.
Six triggers that make operating model redesign urgent
Most leadership teams can feel it when their organization has stopped working. Meetings multiply. Decisions stall a level below where they ought to be made. Capable people quietly solve the same problem twice because nobody is certain who owns it. What is usually missing is not awareness but a moment that forces the issue, so the redesign gets deferred to next quarter, and next quarter arrives with the same org chart and a more ambitious plan attached to it.
We wrote up the six moments that should force it: M&A and integration, leadership transition, AI adoption, scaling for growth, and two more we see repeatedly in PE-backed businesses. If more than one is true for you today, the redesign is already late.
Where To Find Us This Fall
OpAcademy Webinar - Thursday, October 8, Designing Your Operating Model in the Age of AI. An hour on getting the model right before the growth plan outruns it. Registration opens later this month.
St. Louis SHRM - Friday, October 9, Changing Human Behavior at Scale: HR's Role in Operating Model Redesign.
Closed-Door Dinner Discussion: Le District, NYC - Tuesday, October 20, aligned with the PEI Operating Partners Forum. The CEO and Deal Partner Relationship: The Inside View. A candid conversation among operating partners and portfolio company leaders.
Headquarters Cocktail Event: Greenwich, CT - November TBD, We have moved into a fabulous new suite and would like to show it off. Details coming soon.
If you are heading into Q4 planning and something in your organization is not keeping pace with the plan, tell me about it.
— Alice Mann, Founder & CEO, Mann Partners