Built from inside growing businesses.
Purpose In Action is the operational advisory practice of David Schofield — fractional COO and operational structure advisor. It works with founder-led businesses at points of operational strain: installing structure, developing leadership teams, and positioning technology deliberately.
A systems designer, not a report-and-leave consultant
Most advisory either diagnoses and departs, or embeds and never leaves. Purpose In Action does neither. It designs operating infrastructure and develops the leadership team to hold it — so the business becomes structurally independent of its founder, and the improvement stays after the work ends.
How David works
Structure first
Operating infrastructure installed across the four pillars of the Firm Foundation Framework, in sequence.
People to hold it
Leaders developed on authority, standards, and difficult conversations — so the structure is owned, not imposed.
Technology, deliberately
Technology and AI positioned inside the operating model, not bolted on.
Ownership handed back
The aim is structural independence — the founder freed from being the single point of failure.
Often the biggest unlock is a person already inside the firm: I develop trusted people into bigger roles, with the decision rights and visibility to carry them, so authority can widen beyond the founder safely.
I work with founders at the point where the business has outgrown the way it is run. The job is to redesign the system so it no longer depends on any one person to hold it together.David Schofield · Purpose In Action
Proven outcomes
Range is the advantage
Twenty years across industries, roles, and businesses of my own — grounded in postgraduate study of business and leadership. The hardest operational problems rarely sit inside one function or one sector. They live at the seams between them.
Across functions
Operations and leadership, technology and finance — the whole operating system, not one corner of it.
Across sectors
Professional services and law through to digital agencies and construction — pattern recognition that transfers between them.
Built for the AI shift
As AI reshapes how every business runs, the edge moves from narrow specialism to the judgement to see the whole system and decide what actually matters.
Based in the East Midlands, working UK & US
Based in Lubenham, Leicestershire, working with founder-led businesses across the United Kingdom and United States — in professional services, legal practices, digital agencies, consultancies, and construction.
Begin with a conversation
A focused 30-minute Operational Clarity Call — a direct read of where the business stands, not a sales pitch. No obligation.
Book an Operational Clarity Call →