Saturn Five was built around a 25-year pattern: enterprise value in software companies is often constrained not by pipeline, but by what happens after the contract is signed. We are the operators who diagnose and fix it.
Founder & Managing Partner
Post-Contract Operating Practice
Tom Clarke is the Founder and Managing Partner of Saturn Five Consulting, a firm focused on strengthening the post-contract revenue engine inside private equity-backed and growth-stage software companies.
Tom built Saturn Five around a clear pattern observed over 25 years leading global Professional Services organizations: enterprise value is often constrained not by pipeline, but by what happens after the contract is signed.
The post-contract journey — from scoping and implementation through renewal, expansion, and referenceability — is where margin erosion, revenue leakage, delivery bottlenecks, and customer risk quietly accumulate. When execution discipline lags growth ambition, services become a drag on valuation rather than a contributor to EBITDA.
Tom's career has centered on correcting that imbalance. He has led global and North American Professional Services organizations with full P&L accountability, executed margin turnarounds, rebuilt delivery operating models, scaled partner ecosystems, and aligned Sales, Services, and Customer Success around predictable implementation velocity and contribution margin expansion.
At Affinaquest, he led a services transformation that restored financial performance and operational discipline within a year. At Blackboard and Transact Campus, he led complex global services organizations through SaaS transitions, M&A integration, and international scaling. Earlier at KPMG, he led large-scale enterprise transformation programs that reshaped operating models across major institutions.
PATTERNS HE'S BUILT SATURN FIVE TO FIXTom works directly with CEOs, CROs, COOs, and private equity operating partners to architect and install scalable operating models that improve contribution margins, increase cash flow velocity, reduce integration risk, protect client trust during growth or acquisition, and strengthen renewal and expansion readiness.
Managing Partner
Ecosystem & Alliance Practice
Lorin Coles is a growth architect and ecosystem strategist who helps professional services and technology organizations convert partnerships into scalable revenue engines and durable enterprise value.
As Managing Partner at Saturn Five Consulting, Lorin architects ecosystem strategies that directly reinforce the post-contract client journey. He works with leadership teams to design partner-integrated revenue models, align incentives across Sales and Services, and implement governance structures that ensure alliance-driven growth translates into predictable delivery, retained revenue, and improved services profitability.
Most recently, Lorin served as Executive Vice President of Alliances, Channels and Ecosystems at Aprio, where he led global ecosystem strategy and execution. In that role, he designed and institutionalized the firm's alliance and channel operating model — transforming partnerships into structured growth platforms that generated qualified pipeline, strengthened co-sell discipline, and ensured delivery alignment across complex, multi-party engagements.
Lorin was also the Founder and CEO of Alliancesphere, where he advised executive teams on building high-performance ecosystem strategies. His work centered on designing alliance governance structures, executive sponsorship models, performance accountability frameworks, and operating cadences that converted strategic partnerships into measurable business outcomes.
Earlier in his career, Lorin served as Senior Vice President of Alliances at Scient/iXL, where he built a Gartner-recognized, best-in-class alliance program. Across roles, he has consistently built growth frameworks that integrate Sales, Services, and Partner organizations into unified revenue architectures capable of scaling without eroding delivery quality or margin.
CORE EXPERTISEThe name Saturn Five draws inspiration from the Saturn V rocket — the most powerful launch vehicle ever built, designed to carry the Apollo missions into space and ultimately land a man on the moon. Its purpose was clear: to do the heavy lifting required to turn vision and goals into reality.
That same spirit drives our work. At Saturn Five Consulting, we partner with software companies to take on the heavy lifting required to transform the post-contract operating layer — Customer Success, Professional Services, Support, Renewals, Alliances, and the handoffs between them — delivering the insight, structure, experienced leadership, and execution needed to achieve lasting, high-impact results.
Software companies invest enormously in two engines — go-to-market and product. They rarely invest with the same rigor in the third: the post-contract operating layer where outcomes are actually delivered, retained, and expanded.
The pattern repeats across PE-backed and growth-stage software companies of every size: weak sales-to-services transitions, poor scoping discipline, missing operational cadence, fragmented data and systems between Customer Success, Professional Services, Support, and Renewals. And now, AI compounds the stakes — landing first inside post-contract organizations and raising the operational bar across every dimension.
Saturn Five exists because nobody fixes this proactively. By the time it shows up in NRR, margin, or a stalled multiple, the problem has been compounding for years.
We fix it before it gets there.
Every Saturn Five engagement is led by operators who have run the function they're advising on — full P&L, full headcount, real scar tissue. Not analysts. Not researchers. Operators.
Apollo, our proprietary platform, is AI-augmented at every step where pattern recognition adds value. We practice what we preach about AI-native consulting.
Engagements complete with measured EV impact — not deliverable delivery. Every recommendation is tied to NRR, margin, and multiple in dollars over a defined horizon.
Saturn Five and NavCore share a thesis: the post-contract operating layer of software companies is where enterprise value will be won or lost over the next decade. Saturn Five is the consultancy that diagnoses and rebuilds the operating model. NavCore is the software company building the operating intelligence layer that supports the future of post-contract work — including the FDE model Saturn Five frequently recommends. Two companies. One thesis. Distinct missions.
Visit NavCore →10 minutes. A directional read on where your post-contract orgs sit.
Take the diagnostic →Skip the diagnostic and book a scoping conversation.
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