Joanne Stableford
LinkedIn Get in Touch

What I Do

Since 2025, I've been working independently under Stableford Solutions, advising scaling businesses, nonprofits, and leadership teams on business operations, people systems, governance, and organizational strategy.

The organizations I work with are at an inflection point — they've grown beyond the systems, processes, and structures that got them here, and they need to build what comes next. I've spent my career as the person who comes in when an organization is moving faster than its infrastructure and figures out how to close that gap.

I'm not a framework vendor. Every engagement starts with understanding the actual organization — its goals, its constraints, its culture, and where the real friction is — and builds from there.

Background

My career spans a deliberately wide range of environments, which I think of as a strength. I've built operating systems for high-growth technology startups, led enterprise operations for global distributed teams, supported government program delivery at a public benefit corporation, and coordinated high-level diplomatic and cross-government operations at the Embassy of Australia in Washington, DC.

Before all of that, I served as a Warfare Officer in the Royal Australian Navy — where strategic planning, command leadership, and operating effectively under pressure weren't theoretical concepts. That foundation shapes how I approach complex, ambiguous problems today.

2025 – Present
Principal & Founder
Stableford Solutions LLC
Independent consulting across business operations, HR, governance, and organizational strategy for scaling businesses and nonprofits.
2023 – 2024
Head of Business Operations & Finance
Fleet Device Management Inc.
End-to-end operator for a VC-backed global startup — HR, finance, legal, IT, compliance, and revenue operations. Scaled from $600K to $6.5M ARR.
2019 – 2023
Growth & Delivery Operations Director → Business Operations Manager
Nava Public Benefit Corporation
Operations across government program delivery, business development, staffing, and financial systems in a regulated, mission-driven environment.
2015 – 2019
Operations & Policy Coordination
Embassy of Australia, Washington DC
Cross-government operations, high-level diplomatic coordination, and policy support across U.S. and international public-sector institutions.
2010 – 2015
Warfare Officer → Records & Information Officer
Royal Australian Navy / Calytrix Technologies
Naval operations and command leadership; knowledge management systems for Australian Defence simulation and training. Australian Defence Medal recipient.

Nonprofit & Governance Experience

In addition to advisory work, I'm actively involved in volunteer nonprofit governance — direct, current experience with the financial, structural, and political constraints that mission-driven organizations navigate every day.

Board of Directors
Riviera Beach Volunteer Fire Company
Chair, Treasurer's Council
Anne Arundel County Volunteer Firefighters Association

These roles involve financial oversight, policy development, governance structure, grant management, cross-organization coordination with county government, and financial standardization across member organizations.

Education & Credentials

Cornell University — Employment Law for Leaders Certificate (in progress, 2026)
Georgetown University — Fundamentals of Project Management Certificate
Pace University — Bachelor of Business Administration (equivalency)
Australian Defence Force Academy — Bachelor of Arts
Scrum Alliance Certified Scrum Master (CSM)

Professional Affiliations

American Society of Association Executives Operators Guild Pasadena Business Association 100 Club of Anne Arundel County

Operating principles

Build it to last, not to depend on me

Every system I design is built for your team to own. Documentation, shared understanding, and clean handoff aren't afterthoughts — they're the deliverable.

Clarity before accountability

You can't hold people accountable for expectations that were never clearly defined. I start by making expectations explicit before building accountability structures around them.

Fit the organization, not the framework

The right system depends on your stage, culture, and constraints — not what worked somewhere else. I build for the specific situation, not the generic case.

Structure enables, not controls

Good operational infrastructure gives people the clarity to do their best work. If structure creates friction instead of removing it, it's the wrong structure.

Let's talk about what you're building.

Whether it's operations, people systems, governance, or organizational strategy — I'm happy to connect.

Start a Conversation