Adam Josephs

Execution Specialist
The talent is there. The delivery is not.
When what you are doing cannot afford to fail.

I work with leadership and execution teams on product development, integrations, and high-stakes operational efforts. I work at the level of how commitments are actually made, whether risks are being surfaced early instead of late, and whether the people who own results have genuinely signed up and are prepared to carry the weight of delivery.

The work is not subtle. I get in the room with the people who have to deliver and we make commitments real, reduce late changes, and build the habits that hold under pressure.

"When I turned to Adam, he told me: You don't need any more financial or software expertise. You do need clarity, measurability, accountability, communication, and integrity. And there began the transformation."
R. Martin Chavez
Vice Chairman, Sixth Street. Board Director, Alphabet/Google. Former CFO, Goldman Sachs.
Schedule a Conversation How I Work
The Problem

Most failures do not start with a technical problem.

They start with a risk someone saw but did not raise. A commitment someone made but did not mean. A role that three people thought they owned and nobody actually did. Unclear accountability, overlapping responsibilities, gaps where critical decisions fall between functions.

The result is always the same: changes that should have happened early happen late, when the cost is ten times higher and the options are ten times fewer. The damage is not just schedule. It is market position, integration value, investor confidence, and team credibility.

I work upstream of that failure.

How I Work

Risk Up Front® is built on a simple premise: teams deliver faster and more reliably when risks and commitments are forced into the open early, while there is still time to act.

Three phases. One objective: the team delivers.

01

Discovery

Short, focused interviews with stakeholders across levels and functions. We find out what is working, what is not, and what people would change if they could. This surfaces the real dynamics, not the ones in the status report.

02

Workshop

A hands-on session where the team applies Risk Up Front to their actual project. We build shared language around risk, commitment, and accountability. The hard conversations happen here, not in month eight.

03

Coaching

Ongoing work with the team to make the new practices stick. Individual sessions with leadership and team members, facilitation of critical meetings, and direct engagement where delivery pressure is highest.

People call when:

Whether it is a four-month product launch or a multi-year carve-out integration, the engagement is sized to the problem.

Results

What changes when teams work this way.

75% → 0%
A software company went from missing 75% of deadlines to hitting every delivery date within 5 days
$75M
Revenue growth from getting to market before the competition arrived at a photonics company
70%
Of engagements come from repeat clients and referrals. The people who know the work best keep calling back.
From the Teams

People I have worked with.

"It is really Adam himself who breathed life into the approach. More than one team member remarked that the project he coached us on was the most effective project they had ever been involved in."
McKay Hyde
Managing Director, Goldman Sachs
"Adam is simply great, full of energy and enthusiasm. He analyzes situations rapidly and precisely and from that analysis generates action plans that lead rapidly to results. What more could I say? I like to talk to him."
Rick Gottscho
CTO, Lam Research
"Adam and Risk Up Front catalyze high quality, predictable execution, ownership and integrity. It has helped my teams from Apple to Google execute better, trust more, be more empowered and enjoy the process."
Dave Owen
Senior Technical Staff, Google
"The result was immediate. The organization gelled as a high performance team with no room for passengers or cynics. My regret is that we did not hire him sooner."
Kieran Drain
Managing Director, Nanogram

See the full case studies →

Who I Work With

Teams where delivery is high-stakes.

I work with leadership and execution teams at companies ranging from startups to business units inside large enterprises. The common thread is a project or initiative that matters enough that missing it has real consequences.

Industries include semiconductors, biotech, financial technology, consumer electronics, and software. The methodology is agnostic to what the team is building. It operates on how the team delivers.

Goldman Sachs Lam Research NeoPhotonics Google MKS Instruments PKWARE Vivint
"Adam did such an incredible job of accelerating an engineering project while he consulted with my previous company, NeoPhotonics, I recommended him to the CEO of my current company. Once again, he is clearly accelerating the pace of this project, and I would recommend Adam to anyone wanting to finish their project sooner."
Bill McGovern
Director of Engineering, NeoPhotonics
"Adam is the most engaging, inspiring and energetic person I know. He has been helping PKWARE return to their startup roots. I've known Adam as a passionate slave driver who has managed to extract energy where I thought none was left and motivate me to be better than I could be on my own."
Matt Little
CTO, PKWARE
About

A few words about me.

I have spent my career working with technology organizations on how they deliver. Early on I held leadership roles at Apple, Microsoft, and a number of startups. I have been coaching and advising teams at companies ranging from startups to business units inside Goldman Sachs, Lam Research, and other global enterprises, across semiconductors, biotech, fintech, and software.

I developed the Risk Up Front methodology with my co-author Brad Rubenstein, and it is now taught at Dartmouth Engineering and the University of Maryland. My academic work has been at Stanford and Oxford's Said Business School.

I work with leadership teams and the people doing the actual delivering, from the executive setting the direction to the engineers and program managers carrying the weight of execution. Some of my most rewarding work has been with early-stage companies building something for the first time and needing to get it right. You do not need to be a large organization to work with me. You need a delivery challenge that matters and a willingness to change how your team operates.

The Book
Risk Up Front book cover

Risk Up Front: Managing Projects in a Complex World

The methodology behind the work, written with Brad Rubenstein. Used as a textbook at Dartmouth Engineering and the University of Maryland. Featuring a cover quote from the CFO of Goldman Sachs.

Four principles. Four documents. Two meetings. A framework for teams that need to deliver in complex, high-risk environments.

Get the Book

If you are carrying something that cannot afford to fail, let us talk.

Most engagements start with a conversation. No pitch deck, no sales process. Just a direct discussion about what your team is facing and whether I can help.

Schedule a Conversation