Increase revenues. Cut costs.
Improve profitability.
Operator-led strategy and execution for growth-stage companies doing $2M–$20M in revenue. Built by a working CEO — not a career consultant.
Four ways to put an operator
in your corner
No 12-month commitments to find out if we're useful. Start free, see the thinking, and scale the engagement when the work earns it.
Advisory Insights
Operator-grade perspectives on strategy, capital, and operations — the same thinking clients pay for, in newsletter form. Subscribers get launch pricing on the Operator's Toolkit.
Subscribe FreeQuick Business Review
Grant us temporary access to your books. Within 2 business days you get a written report on where the profit is leaking and a consultation to walk through it. Straight talk, no upsell theater.
Get Your ReviewFixed-Scope Projects
Expense audits, KPI and reporting buildouts, job costing reality checks, QBO cleanup, CRM implementation, AI roadmaps. One problem, one price, one deliverable.
Browse Fixed-Scope OffersFractional COO / CFO
Embedded executive leadership for companies not ready for a full-time hire. Scope narrows on day one to the 2–3 problems costing you the most sleep — then we fix them.
See Retainer TiersIndustry fluency, not generic frameworks
Advice grounded in businesses we've actually run — from the trades to healthcare to real estate to the balance sheet itself. Pick the door that matches your problem; the operator behind each one is the same.
Construction & Roofing
Job costing, insurance supplement capture, crew scaling, multi-state licensing. We run a licensed contractor — this is firsthand.
Learn MoreHealthcare Operations
System buildouts, consult volume growth, revenue cycle work. Built a practice serving 8 healthcare platforms and 1,000+ monthly consults.
Learn MoreReal Estate
Deal analysis, development advisory, acquisition strategy across hospitality, commercial, raw land, and conservation easements.
Learn MoreAI Implementation
Practical AI for mid-market operators — intake, dispatch, reporting, and analysis. Measurable ROI, not demos. Any industry.
Learn MoreFinancial & Capital Advisory
Fractional CFO work for SMBs — cash flow, profitability, expense bloat, bank-ready books, capital sourcing, and M&A lite.
Learn MoreOutcomes, not deliverables
Faster Project Delivery
Construction client cut project delivery timelines 30% in 90 days.
Overhead Reduction
Healthcare operation cut overhead 35% while scaling from 50 to 200 employees.
Pipeline Velocity
Real estate firm increased deal pipeline velocity 2.4x.
Client Onboarding
Design services firm cut client onboarding from 3 weeks to 4 days.
“The gap between $3M and $30M isn’t a strategy problem. It’s an execution problem with a capital structure on top.”— Carey Grainger, X Holdings
Operator experience.
Not consulting theory.
X Holdings was founded in 2013 to formalize a practice built over two decades: helping mid-market companies navigate inflection points that require both financial acumen and operational discipline.
Our principal, Carey Grainger, brings 30+ years spanning Wall Street (Lehman Brothers, Salomon Smith Barney, Citigroup), healthcare operations, real estate, construction, and strategic advisory — and still runs an operating company today. The result is advice grounded in real P&L experience, not frameworks from a textbook.
Meet the PrincipalFrom the operator's desk
Where AI Actually Pays Off in a Trades Business (And Where It Doesn't)
We run our own construction company on an AI-forward stack. Here's the honest scorecard: the workflows where AI already earns its keep, and the vendor pitches you can safely ignore.
ReadThe 13-Week Cash Flow: The One Report Every $2M–$20M Operator Should Run
Your P&L tells you whether the business worked last month. The 13-week cash flow tells you whether you can make payroll in week nine. One of those questions gets companies killed.
ReadHow Roofing Contractors Leave 8–15% on the Table in Uncaptured Supplements
On insurance restoration work, the difference between a 28% gross margin and a 38% one usually isn't pricing or production. It's whether anyone in the company owns the supplement workflow.
ReadReady to work with an operator,
not a consultant?
30-minute intro call. No pitch deck, no pressure. Let's talk about where your business is and where you want it to go.