Strategy & Scale

• Changed the target market for a team introducing new agricultural drying technology from small farmers to large seed and food processing companies, creating a viable business model and a dramatic acceleration in technology adoption that ultimately increased demand for small farmers' output.

• Coached a partnership between a research and business organization that was ready to split apart, creating a common understanding, language and culture. The results greatly increased the effectiveness of their marketing efforts and the rate of new product adoption.

• Worked with the International Fund for Agricultural Development in Rome to recognize that many of their projects had little potential for scaling and explicitly integrate scalability into their program design process and internal incentives.

• In India, I am called the ‘Scaling Up Guru’ after six years of facilitating the scale up of several the public health sector.  Major accomplishment was the national scaling of a proven model for achieving 65% declines in infant mortality and morbidity. This program is now present in most of Northern India with 700,000 community health workers implementing the program.

• Identified the market and cost obstacles preventing scaling of a new anti-pest agricultural netting technology for horticulture in East Africa and devised a market and technology validation strategy. As a result, the research team received validation funding and closed the deal with a commercial partner to begin large scale marketing.

• In Bangladesh, “Richard Kohling” means to take a program or project design completely apart, test the logic, make explicit and ground-truth the assumptions, consider alternative strategies and activities, and put it all back together better than before. 

​

As my former boss, Larry Cooley, co-founder and president emeritus of the internationally known strategy consulting firm MSI said: “He marries an understanding of markets and incentives with a keen understanding of human and organizational dynamics and…how to best mobilize them.”

​

My passion is to help you get to the root of your challenges, not just fix short-term problems. I help you design and implement  profitable long-term solutions because I understand your products and programs, your organization, and the ecosystem you work in.  These solutions will increase your performance, profitability and impact