Vladimir Savvon — Special Situations Practice

What I do

When I get called

Owners

CEO

C-level

Division heads

I come in from the outside — your traditions, relationships and internal rules don't hold me. I do what your own people can't

Expansion

Enter a new region or push out a competitor. Fast.

Unpopular change

The reform they're afraid to start because of the resistance.

Stalled project

Everything's ready, nothing moves. I'll find what's holding it.

Path to venture

Take it to money: model, pitch, first check.

0 → major league

From nobody to a name taken seriously.

The idea that could change the world

Some projects I take on not because they'll pay

But because I can't
walk past them

If it changes the world for the better, I put in everything I have

Case 1 — Economics

A pennies quarter
turned seven-figure

In one quarter, without changing the market

×30

quarterly distribution:

17–23K → 700K

The situation

The principal was closing the agency scheme — three months for everything. The job wasn't to survive it, but to come out stronger.

Solution

Per-second billing, a rebuilt tariff structure, a portfolio cleared of loss-making clients, tighter losses, faster invoicing

Result

Next quarter –
700K
distributed to owners, up from 17–23K

a 30 jump
on a single rebuild.
Done — and out

I know that when the economics don't add up, the problem isn't the market — it's the structure. A project earning less than it should isn't fine-tuned. It's rebuilt.

Case 2 — Technology

From an "unsolvable"
hypothesis to a project
that funds and clinics
take seriously

0 → 80%

model accuracy on 3,000 annotated objects

The situation

Detecting small objects on CT scans the human eye can't see was considered technically unsolvable. At the start — no money, no team, nothing you could see or touch

Solution

Built the team, set the research trajectory, translated the hypothesis into product language, built the financial model, unit economics, pitch and negotiation track.

Result

3 products
at MVP stage, a QMS for the engineering department, an international professional community

Letters of interest from major clinics; due diligence with three international funds; talks with global equipment manufacturers and health systems across three countries.

I know that between an interesting technology and a project people invest in lies a separate build. That build is what I do.

Case 3 — Change

Budget cuts they accepted instead of sabotaging

No revolt

a painful decision — accepted, without sabotage

The situation

A regional culture authority had to push through budget cuts. Everywhere else the same cuts had turned into a fight — sabotage, stalling, loss of control.

Solution

Instead of administrative pressure — a facilitated strategic session built on a single idea I seeded into their thinking. They played with it, owned it, and the cut became their own logic rather than an order.

Result

The cuts went through with understanding and without the expected resistance. The new frame became their own internal language of change.

I know that in painful change you don't change people's behavior — you change the frame they see it through. Then resistance turns into participation.

Other cases

A monopolist's unlawful refusal — broken

I put the monopolist face to face with the regulator. The law they hid behind didn't exist. A right no one else on the market had

A client base — without a single shot

Three days of negotiation with the owner. Took the base on a gentleman's agreement; force wasn't an option

90% in a month

Took down the region's No. 1 agent and doubled my own volume. Repeated it in another city

From rivalry to alliance

Instead of a war with the competitor, one shared machine
~70% of the market in six months

~40 people

Took them through a mindset-transformation program. Among the graduates — a National Geographic contract, the country's top-rated host

… and more

Expertise

One person
instead of five functions

I get called when a task doesn't fit any single profession. Not a financier, not a marketer, not a product manager — you need one person who holds all of it at once and owns the result

I keep in focus: commerce, unit economics, regulation, communications, AI-based delivery — and a sense of art, which usually isn't on that list. The unsolvable almost always hides where these layers meet. That's where I look

I read any system through its construction — the logic it's built on. Telecom, medicine, culture, government: different vocabulary, similar laws

I've sat in every one of these chairs. Stayed in none

10 yearsCBDO

8 yearsCEO

3 yearsCTO

2 yearsCMO

2 yearsCDTO