Espresso machine at work

Strategic Advisory & Operations

When things are easy,
hire a consultant.
When they’re not,
call Mieke.

25 years of building, breaking, and fixing organizations — from barista to boardroom, specializing in partnering with founders through the moments that matter most, when the situation is hardest and the stakes are highest.

Work Together About Mieke
25+
Years in Operations & Leadership
$800M+
Annual Revenue Led
400+
Locations Opened or Turned Around
Founders
Her Specialty. The Partner You Call First
Most consultants are hired to validate a strategy.
Mieke is hired when the strategy isn’t working.

When teams are divided, leaders are stuck, operations are struggling, labor relations have become contentious, or the organization is facing a defining moment, Mieke brings clarity, candor, and execution.

No theater. No buzzwords. No 100-page deck. Just honest assessments, difficult conversations, pivotal decisions, and forward-looking strategies that reduce risk and illuminate the clearest path ahead.

Whether navigating union organizing campaigns, collective bargaining, leadership transitions, cultural breakdowns, rapid growth, or operational turnarounds, the objective is the same: create alignment, reduce uncertainty, and build a practical path forward.

Because most organizations don’t fail from a lack of ideas. They fail when leaders can no longer clearly see the way through. Mieke helps them find it, and then helps them execute it.

Finding the way through
Most organizations don’t fail
from a lack of ideas.
They fail when leaders can no longer see the way through.

02 — Specialties

The situations
most people avoid.

Mieke is brought in for the problems that are too political, too complex, or too urgent for the usual approach. Below are the engagements she does best.

Workforce Organizing & Labor Relations
When a union drive lands or threatens to, most operators are unprepared. Mieke understands both sides of the table: what workers are actually asking for, and what leadership needs to do to respond with integrity and legal clarity: de-escalation, communication strategy, and structural change that addresses root causes.
Organizational Change & Restructuring
Leadership transitions, departures, new hires who aren’t working, teams that have lost trust in each other. Mieke rebuilds the organizational structure and the culture at the same time, because one without the other doesn’t hold.
Brand & Identity Transitions
Rebrands, pivots, acquisitions, and identity crises all create the same internal problem: nobody knows what to believe anymore. Mieke stabilizes operations through the transition while aligning the team to what the brand is becoming — not what it used to be.
Operational Turnaround
When margins are bleeding, locations are underperforming, and the P&L tells a story nobody wants to read out loud, Mieke goes location by location, system by system, and finds what’s actually broken. Then fixes it. No performance theater. Just real change.
Leadership & Team Development
Managers who were promoted too fast. Teams that don’t trust their leaders. Founders who built a great product but can’t build a great company. Mieke has spent 25 years developing people at every level from barista to boardroom, and knows exactly where the gaps are.
Strategic Advisory & Founder Partnership
Mieke’s deepest work is as a long-term partner to founders — someone who understands what it took to build the thing, and what it takes to protect it. Advisory roles built around trust, candor, and a genuine stake in the outcome, backed by a network of operators, specialists, and recruiters built over 25 years.

03 — About

Built from the front line.
Proven at every level.

Mieke Fonteyn
Mieke Fonteyn
Principal, Fonteyn Inc.
  • Starbucks, Barista to Field Leadership
  • Caribou Coffee / JDE Peet’s, Director through Head of Retail
  • Peet’s Coffee, Full Retail Division, 300+ Openings
  • %Arabica, Founding Americas Executive
  • Compass Food Group, Vice President of Operations

I started as an 18-year-old barista at Starbucks — hired on the spot during a tornado, which turned out to be good preparation for everything that followed. That day set the tone for the career that followed: show up, do the work, and don’t get distracted by the weather.

Over 25 years I moved from the front line to leading field operations across hundreds of locations, overseeing teams of 4,000+ and revenue exceeding $800M annually. I’ve opened more than 400 locations. I’ve closed some too. I’ve navigated acquisitions, union drives, founder exits, leadership collapses, and brand reinventions — sometimes all in the same year.

What I’ve learned is that the hardest moments in a company’s life are also the most consequential. The decisions made when everything is on fire determine what kind of company survives. I’ve built my practice around being useful in exactly those moments.

I have a particular affinity for founders — the ones who built something real, who care deeply about it, and who need a partner who will be equally honest about what’s working and what isn’t. Someone who has sat in that chair and knows what it costs. That’s the work I find most meaningful, and where I believe I do my best.

04 — Featured Clients

Notable brands,
prior clients.

A selection of the founder-led brands and independent operators Mieke has worked with. Every engagement is different. Every situation is confidential. These are a few of the names she can share.

Highwire Coffee Roasters
Oakland, CA — 8 Locations
Strategic advisor to founders and CEO. Organizational restructuring, HR infrastructure buildout, leadership development, and workforce organizing response during a period of significant operational and cultural change.
Sunlife Organics
National · 25 Locations
Fractional COO engagement supporting operations, team structure, and growth infrastructure for a national organic food and beverage brand with 25 locations, navigating the complexity that comes with scaling a values-driven concept across markets.
Kohana Coffee
Austin, TX
Operational and strategic advisory for an independent specialty coffee producer. Focus on systems, team, and the operational foundation needed to support the brand’s next stage of growth.
Highwire Coffee Roasters Sunlife Organics Kohana Cold Brew

05 — Engagement

How we can
work together.

Every engagement is built around the specific situation. No off-the-shelf approach here, just clear-eyed diagnosis and the experience to execute.

Advisory Services
Ongoing strategic partnership for founders and leadership teams navigating complex or high-stakes periods. Mieke brings not just experience, but a vast network of operators, legal counsel, HR professionals, recruiters, and industry specialists — the right people for the right problem, already in her contacts.
  • Board and advisory roles
  • Executive recruiting and team building
  • Leadership coaching and development
  • Crisis response and escalation
  • Org design and succession planning
  • Network introductions and resource connections
Get in Touch
Project Engagement
A focused, time-bound engagement built around a specific challenge. Bring the problem. Mieke brings 25 years of operational experience, a track record of fixing things others have given up on, and a network deep enough to source the talent and resources needed to execute.
  • Labor relations and union response
  • Organizational restructuring
  • Executive and leadership recruiting
  • Operational turnaround
  • Leadership transitions and offboarding
  • Brand and identity change management
Start a Conversation
Cliffs in the storm
Different challenges.
Different industries.
The work remains the same.

Let’s get
to work.

Schedule a Call