Building a Department from the Ground Up

akoyaGO | Philanthropic Technology | 2018–2022

The Organization

akoyaGO builds database software for philanthropic organizations — community foundations, family foundations, and donor-advised funds managing anywhere from a few million to hundreds of millions in assets. The clients are sophisticated, the stakes are high, and the work requires a rare combination of technical fluency and relational trust.

When I joined, the company was growing. New clients were coming in. The product was strong. But the infrastructure for actually supporting those clients at scale hadn't caught up with the growth.

The Problem

There was no Account Management Department.

What existed instead was a loose collection of individuals trying to serve clients as best they could without standardized systems, shared documentation, or a clear model for what client success actually looked like at akoyaGO.

The day-to-day problems this created were significant:

Every client relationship lived inside one person's head. When that person was out, on another project, or eventually left — the relationship went with them. There was no institutional knowledge. No handoff protocol. No way for a new team member to get up to speed quickly without starting from scratch.

Training was inconsistent. Clients were learning the platform in different ways depending on who was supporting them, which meant adoption rates varied wildly and support requests stayed high long after implementation should have been complete.

There was no early warning system. Problems escalated because nobody had built the infrastructure to catch them before they became crises. By the time an issue surfaced, it had usually been brewing for weeks.

And perhaps most critically — clients were dependent. They needed us to do things for them that they should have been able to do independently. That dependency wasn't good for them and it wasn't sustainable for us.

The Work

I was brought in as a Database Consultant and eventually moved into Client Success and Account Management as the scope of what needed to be built became clear.

The first order of business was documentation. I worked to externalize the knowledge that lived in people's heads — building process maps, creating training materials, and establishing the shared infrastructure that would allow the team to serve clients consistently regardless of who was in the room.

I implemented a learning management system that transformed how 60+ client organizations accessed training and resources. Instead of one-off sessions that clients couldn't reference later, they now had a structured, self-serve knowledge base they could return to whenever they needed it.

I developed 20+ customized data management systems for foundations that translated complex database processes into workflows their teams could actually navigate independently. The goal was always the same: reduce the dependency, increase the capability, and make sure clients could run their own operations without us in the room.

When I identified that the company needed a formal Account Management function, I made the case and built it — establishing the systems, the processes, and the standards that would allow the team to manage a growing client base without losing the quality of the relationships that had made akoyaGO successful in the first place.

The Outcome

Clients moved from dependent to empowered. Support requests decreased as adoption increased. Knowledge stopped living in individuals and started living in systems. And the team had the infrastructure to scale without burning out the people doing the work.