Daniel J. Stott
Operations Transformation · AI Ventures · Creative Production
Who I Am
Over 20 years working across enterprise technology, retail, live entertainment, and consulting. It's a career that looks unusual on paper and makes complete sense in practice. The pattern is the same everywhere: organizations have problems they've been solving the wrong way, and I'm good at diagnosing that before anyone builds anything.
At Apple I helped launch a customer support channel that scaled to 8,000 advisors worldwide. Through Stottly I built an AI operations platform that returned 9,000 management hours a year to a 12-location restaurant group. The work looks different every time. The approach doesn't: observe before designing, understand before building, and measure what actually changed. I do my best work with organizations that need someone who can move across strategy and execution without losing either.
A conservative estimate: 500+ AppleCare advisors directly coached, plus hundreds more performers, crew, and students led and mentored across 30+ theatrical productions and four years of teaching at SCCC, plus retail teams managed at RadioShack and Apple's early store expansion.
How I Work
Every organization already holds the knowledge it needs. The work is uncovering it before designing anything.
Observe
Watch how work actually happens before assuming what the problem is.
Listen
Talk to the people doing the work, not just the people managing it.
Question
Ask until a real pattern emerges rather than a convenient one.
Understand
Confirm the real problem before proposing any solution.
Build
Design and implement only once the problem is the right one.
Iterate
Adjust based on what actually happens, not what the plan assumed would happen.
Core Capabilities
Program & Project Management
Leading initiatives from discovery through implementation and adoption.
AI Implementation & Adoption
Applying AI as a practical tool for discovery, iteration, and delivery.
Operational Modernization
Redesigning workflows and systems people actually use.
Cross-Functional Leadership
Aligning stakeholders across engineering, ops, and the field.
Executive Communication
Translating complexity into clear decisions for leadership.
Process Improvement
Measurable gains in efficiency, consistency, and quality.
Strategic Planning & Budgeting
Setting direction, and the financial plan to actually get there.
Change Management
Guiding teams through transitions without losing momentum or trust.
Team Development & Coaching
Building capability in the people who carry the work forward.
Restaurant Operations Platform
Turning 12 locations of paper-based operations into one digital, bilingual system.
The Problem
The franchise relied on paper-based operational books and manual reporting across 12 locations. Managers completed food safety and compliance tasks inconsistently, and information was hard to share across locations. Communication was fragmented between English-only and Spanish-only managers, and administrative work kept managers in the office instead of on the floor.
Discovery
Rather than gathering requirements from a conference room, I spent a week observing four managers in their normal environment, interviewed every manager who had time to speak with me, and mapped the existing paper workflows. I designed the platform around how managers already worked, instead of forcing them into a new process.
- Standardized Checklists. Consistent daily operational, food safety, and compliance workflows across every location.
- Centralized Communication. One system for managers instead of fragmented, location-by-location updates.
- Written Translation. Manager-to-manager messages in the platform were translated between English and Spanish in real time, so language was never a barrier to consistency.
- Live Spoken Translation. A built-in speech translation tool let managers communicate on the spot with team members or customers speaking a different language, no separate app or delay required.
- Reduced Admin Burden. Less time on paperwork, more time on the floor coaching employees and serving guests.
Results
The math behind the headline number: roughly 50 managers × 30 minutes saved per day, conservatively, × 360 operating days a year ≈ 9,000 hours returned annually. Beyond the numbers: managers spend more time on the floor with employees and customers.
Apple Business Messages
Building the operational foundation for a brand-new global support channel from scratch.
The Challenge
Apple was launching Business Messages as an entirely new customer support channel. There were no established advisor methodologies, communication standards, or best practices for supporting customers through asynchronous messaging. Advisors handled far more simultaneous conversations than traditional phone support, creating new operational challenges no one had solved before.
My Role
I was selected as part of the early team responsible for building the operational foundation of the new channel. I developed advisor workflows, conversation methodology, style guides, process documentation, presentations, and training materials that standardized how advisors worked within the platform from day one.
The Chat Flow Methodology
The conversation framework I built and taught so advisors could move every chat from greeting to resolution consistently, at scale. As advisor workloads increased, I also helped develop a phrase library tool that cut repetitive typing and reduced handle time. Both became part of AppleCare's training curriculum.
Results
Black Gryphon Productions
Building and running an independent theater company from the ground up for a decade, before "operations" was ever in my title.
The Challenge
Independent theater runs on almost no margin for error: tight budgets, small and often volunteer-heavy crews, and opening-night deadlines that never move. There was no operational playbook to run a company like this sustainably. Every system, from budgeting to casting to crew scheduling, had to be built from scratch and rebuilt every production cycle.
My Role
As founder and director, I owned every operational layer of the company: budgets, vendor relationships, scheduling, and production management, on top of directing the creative work itself, regularly coordinating casts of up to 25 performers alongside technical, design, and operational teams. I built it while working full-time elsewhere to fund it. There was no outside investment, no safety net, just whatever the day job covered.
Production Systems & Rehearsal Workflows
I built repeatable production systems and rehearsal workflows that let small teams consistently deliver work that looked and felt far larger than the budget behind it. It's the same instinct I bring to operational consulting today: build the system once, and the results become repeatable instead of heroic.
Results
Smaller Projects, Same Approach
Bakery Route Optimization
The owner ran five overlapping delivery routes that had developed organically, with redundant travel and inconsistent territory assignments. I reviewed the routes, analyzed customer distribution, and redesigned the structure, consolidating 5 routes down to 3 and eliminating two entirely. That reduced operating costs and increased the business's value ahead of a planned sale.
Dry Cleaner: Pre-Sale Value Improvement
The owner wanted to increase the business's value before selling but was operating with outdated processes and limited services. I evaluated the business operationally and recommended pickup and delivery services plus broader modernization, creating a roadmap that positioned the business as a more attractive acquisition.
Apparel Company: Florida MegaCon
A growing apparel company relied on its designer to simultaneously supervise staff, manage operations, and serve customers during high-volume events. By observing event operations directly, I identified role conflicts and recommended restructuring so the designer could focus on customers while dedicated supervisors led operations.
Leadership & Development
- Founding cohort member of Apple's Leadership Academy, shaping curriculum for 15+ classes that followed.
- Served simultaneously as Support Mentor, Peer Mentor, and substitute Team Manager.
- Directly coached more than 500 advisors across new hire, peer, and management contexts.
AppleCare Excellence Award
One of only two people selected organization-wide, recognizing sustained impact across coaching, escalations, and channel development.
Building Through Stottly Enterprises
Since founding Stottly Enterprises in 2025, I've spun up two focused ventures out of patterns I kept seeing in client work.
StottifAI
My AI adoption and product venture, built to make artificial intelligence practical for small and mid-sized businesses. AI opportunity assessments, custom roadmapping, proof-of-concept builds, custom app development, local model deployment, and generative media pipelines.
Gurilla Studios
My video production venture based in Davenport, FL. Video production, post-production editing, and motion graphics design for clients who need their story told with polish.
Tools I Use, and How
Workflow Prototyping
Tested workflow logic and translation approaches in AI for the Restaurant Operations Platform before any of it was built for real.
Documentation & Training
Built the chat-flow methodology, style guides, and training materials that became part of AppleCare's onboarding curriculum.
Graphic & Visual Production
Local Stable Diffusion and ComfyUI pipelines, including LoRA-trained models, for key art, promotional graphics, and video work at Gurilla Studios and Black Gryphon Productions.
Executive Communication
Turning complex operational findings into presentations and decisions leadership can act on.
Beyond the daily drivers
The broader stack behind the AI, development, and creative work, built up across client engagements and my own projects.
Career Foundation
First leadership role, after two years on-air as a radio personality and news/PSA director. Ten consecutive sales growth awards.
Selected for Apple's early retail expansion, supporting new store launches.
Produced 30+ theatrical productions end to end.
Taught while directing and managing production budgets.
Managed merchandising execution, product launches, and promotional programs across 32 locations monthly throughout Central Virginia.
12 years building AppleCare's support operations.
Consulting on AI adoption and operational modernization.
Education & Certifications
Shakespeare and Renaissance Performance, Mary Baldwin University.
Full Sail University, Valedictorian.
University at Albany.
Google Project Management Professional Certificate · IBM Generative AI for Project Managers Specialization · Google AI Essentials Specialization
"Every organization already knows the answer. It just hasn't found the right question yet."Philosophy
- Solving the wrong problem perfectly is still a failure.
- Technology is a tool. Its value depends entirely on how it's used.
- I don't build process for its own sake. I build systems people actually use.
- I don't aspire to leave organizations dependent on me. I aspire to leave them stronger than I found them.
Let's Talk
Helping organizations modernize operations through technology, AI, and practical execution.