Strategy to Execution

We build the strategy and systems that make growth hold.

heartland sets the growth strategy, builds the systems that carry it, and stays inside with your team until the lift holds, for PE-backed companies with a real growth mandate.

Let's Talk → How We Work
What We Do

Most growth plans don't fail in Excel.

They fail between the plan and the work. The tech stack that can't scale. The sales process that leaks at every stage. The post-acquisition integration stuck because no one owns the commercial transformation.

That's what we fix. The strategy, and the team, technology, sales development, go-to-market, operations, and AI that carry it out. Integrated and compounding. Not a strategy deck. A working system with an owner.

The vertical changes. The problems don't.

  • 01 Diagnose what's broken and set the strategy to fix it. Usually everything touches everything.
  • 02 Design the system that delivers it. Process, technology, org structure, metrics.
  • 03 Install it alongside your team. We work with you, not at you.
  • 04 Make it hold. Train the team, set the cadence, hold the numbers.
How We Work Together

Three ways in.
One standard of work.

Every engagement begins with understanding the system. The right depth becomes clear in the first conversation.

01 The Audit

A focused diagnostic of your growth strategy and the commercial infrastructure behind it, across technology, sales, go-to-market, and operations. We surface the real break points, not the symptoms. You leave with a prioritized roadmap and a clear route for change.

Entry Point
02 Advisory

Ongoing growth strategy and accountability for leadership teams already in place. Strategy set, assumptions challenged, the plan carried into the systems and the team, performance held to standard. Month-to-month. No overhead theater.

Ongoing
03 Embedded

We operate inside your org, owning the strategy and the commercial transformation: technology, sales development, systems, team performance, and results. The deep work of rebuilding the commercial engine alongside you, with full accountability for outcomes.

Anchor
Proof

The work, in numbers.

Twenty-five years building commercial engines for companies moving through transformation, integration, and scale. Different verticals, the same underlying problem, and the same operator accountable for the outcome.

A track record across the full cycle
25 yrs Commercial leadership across healthcare, professional services, consumer, and technology
$300M+ Organizations grown from $50M to $200M+ on a rebuilt commercial engine
6+ Acquisitions and exits operated through, as executive or owner
$35M+ Growth capital raised on the strength of the commercial story
Embedded engagements: clients held in confidence, the pattern is the point
$150M+ Multi-Site Healthcare
1.5xnew-patient volume in 18 months, reversing a multi-year decline
100+person commercial organization led through a performance rebuild
$7.5M+B2B referral channel built from concept to pilot
$80M Legal Services
+85%qualified case volume after a ground-up sales and marketing rebuild
-40%client acquisition cost
42%net margin, up from 32%
Consumer Equipment Manufacturing
200%trailing twelve-month revenue growth in the manufacturing division
2international markets opened, manufacturing relocated to Texas
Exitclean licensing and royalty deal after a deliberate three-year build
Thinking

Original perspective on growth strategy and the systems that carry it.

A monthly dispatch on what it actually takes to turn a growth strategy into systems that scale PE-backed companies. No lead magnets. No funnels. No marketing theater.

Published monthly. Written by an operator, for operators. Unsubscribe any time.

Next Up in Ground Work
  1. 01 Growth infrastructure breaks before strategy does
  2. 02 The commercial engine is not the sales team
  3. 03 Post-acquisition integration starts with the revenue system
  4. 04 AI in regulated environments is an operator problem
  5. 05 The audit is the engagement
Who We Work With

We're selective.
Fit matters to us.

PE-backed companies where growth complexity requires a real strategy and the systems to carry it, not more tactics. Post-acquisition integration, digital transformation, multi-location scale, AI implementation where precision isn't optional.

Right fit
  • →Growth problems that recur despite tactical fixes
  • →Leaders who make decisions and hold teams accountable
  • →Organizations that value systems over heroics
  • →PE-backed companies with a real growth mandate
  • →Operators who want someone who builds, not observes
Not a fit
  • ×Looking for ad management, content, or social media
  • ×Hiring a consultant to validate decisions already made
  • ×Seeking the cheapest option
  • ×Unwilling to make hard calls on team or process
  • ×Want a report, not a rebuilt system
Justin Knechtel
Justin Knechtel

The operator
behind heartland.

I'm the operator you bring in when the commercial engine needs to be rebuilt, not a consultant hired to document it.

Twenty-five years owning growth from the inside: as a CEO with the P&L through acquisition and exit, as CMO and Chief Growth Officer, and now embedded in PE-backed and growth-stage companies. I've taken organizations from $50M to $300M+ across healthcare, professional services, consumer and technology, and sat on the reporting side of the boardroom through PE entry, transformation and exit.

The job is usually the same. Find what's actually limiting growth, build the system and the team to fix it, and hold everyone, starting with me, to the budget and the number. I work alongside the people doing the work, not from a spreadsheet down the hall.

Build the team. Own the number. Leave it stronger.

heartland is built around one senior operator by design. You work with the person accountable for the outcome, not a bench you'll never meet. When the work needs more hands, I bring in a vetted team, and the ownership stays with me.

The endgame is always my exit and your success.

Away from work, I'm with my wife and four kids, our horses, coaching hockey or getting out on the water to fish.

LinkedIn → jk@htlnd.co

Let's talk.

No proposals. No committees. 45-90 minutes to determine if there's a fit. If we're aligned, we move. If not, maybe I've got a referral for you.

Start the Conversation →