FAQ
Questions, answered.
Straight answers to what portco CEOs, CFOs, and operating leaders actually ask us.
How do you make sure an operator fits our pace and standards?
We design for it before we place anyone. Every operator is screened for judgment, communication rhythm, and operational discipline, then trained in the systems and cadence your team runs on. We align to your reporting expectations and decision speed up front — because in a PE-backed environment, rhythm is everything.
Can we scale up or down mid-engagement?
Yes. The model is built to flex — add a seat for a new portco, tighten after integration, expand a team by function. Month-to-month, no lock-in. You get leverage in real time, not on a quarterly planning cycle.
Who manages the operator — you or us?
Both — and the split is the whole point. You manage the work; we manage the interface around it.
You manage the work because the operator is embedded in your team. You set the priorities, you direct the day-to-day, you own what “done” looks like. That's your seat, and it stays yours — we'd never put a layer between you and your own operator.
We manage everything around that seat so the work keeps working: onboarding and training, the standards the operator is held to, the health of the role, retention, and a clean escalation path. That's the stewardship layer — the part most companies underestimate because they've never had to build it.
The short version: you run the work, and we make sure the work keeps working. You keep the work and the outcome, so nothing is handed off. And our part does not taper after the first ninety days. We meet with you every month and check in with your operator one to one, for as long as the seat runs. We push from both ends: with you, for clear direction and steady feedback, and with your operator, for the standard your team holds. When the work earns it, we are the ones in the room asking for the raise. You will also have structured reporting on how the role is doing, so the health of the seat is never a mystery.
How does this work across multiple portcos or at the platform level?
The model scales across a portfolio — centralized support or embedded execution at the portco level, with consistent reporting and continuity. Operational leverage designed for private equity, from first close to exit.
How is Kayana different from a staffing agency, a BPO, or an offshore team?
Most options sell you access, whether that is to a person, to a process, or to hours. A Mini-GCC is different in kind: an embedded operating layer, designed before anyone starts and stewarded after they're in, that holds your context and compounds the longer it runs. It's the structure the Fortune 500 built as a Global Capability Center — sized for the middle market that was locked out of the original. The difference is renting hours versus building capability that compounds in your business. Kayana creates Mini-GCCs — our founder built the model for PE-backed operating companies and laid out the playbook in Operational Alpha.
Is Kayana an offshore staffing company?
Offshore staffing is the closest familiar name for what we do, and it is a fair place to start. We recruit senior professionals and embed them full time in your team, on your business day. What we build around each seat is what makes it different: a role defined with you before anyone is hired, training that keeps running, and a team that stays with you and your operator for as long as the seat runs. We call that a Mini-GCC.
Is offshore staffing only for back-office work?
No. The back office is where many companies start, and it is a good place to start. Our operators also work inside the operation, in loan origination and servicing, engineering design and documentation, BI reporting, operations management, and marketing. What decides is the role. If the work can be defined, measured, and owned on your business day, it can be embedded in your team.
What is the difference between an employer of record (EOR) and Kayana?
An employer of record handles employment, payroll, and compliance for a person you found and manage. Kayana carries employment too. Then we build the rest: we help you define the seat, recruit senior people against it, train the operator, and stay with both of you as the role grows.
Do you provide virtual assistants?
Our operators are senior professionals who own outcomes, in roles such as staff and senior accountant, financial reporting, collections, operations management, BI reporting, and executive support. If the work you have in mind is a list of tasks, we will usually help you shape it into a role first, because a defined role is what lets a senior person do their best work.
Can you fill finance and accounting roles we can't hire locally?
Yes. Our operators include staff and senior accountants, CPAs, and specialists in financial reporting, intercompany accounting, cash and treasury, accounts payable, and collections. We start by defining the seat with you, then recruit senior people against that definition. For private equity portfolio companies, see offshore teams for private equity portfolio companies.
What does an offshore team cost?
Each seat is billed monthly, with no long-term lock-in. Kayana earns the same whichever candidate you choose, so we have no reason to steer you toward a more expensive hire. Raises and bonuses pass through to the operator in full. We share specific numbers once we understand the seat.
How long do your operators stay?
Roughly nine in ten placements succeed. Once an operator clears the first ninety days of full engagement, failure is rare. Voluntary turnover runs 3 to 5% in year one across the teams we have built.
We have an HR function already. How does a Mini-GCC fit with what they do?
They do different jobs, and they don't overlap. Your HR team runs your people operations — hiring and leading your domestic employees, payroll, benefits, compliance, policy, employee relations. That's the human heart of your company, and a Mini-GCC doesn't touch it.
A Mini-GCC is capability infrastructure, not people administration. It's the embedded operating layer that sources, vets, trains, and embeds senior remote operators — then keeps them performing and keeps them from leaving. Those operators aren't on your payroll and aren't an HR file to manage; Kayana carries them. We're the managing agent for that embedded layer: the Cell that wraps the work, the Community that retains the talent, the Stewardship that holds the relationship together. (Your seat — the work itself — stays yours.)
The honest reason a single HR department doesn't just do this in-house isn't capability — it's structure. Sourcing, retaining, and growing senior talent across the world takes a community and a stewardship apparatus, a dedicated offshore sourcing engine, and cultural fluency that only make sense at a scale no one company can justify building for its own headcount. It isn't HR's mandate, and it isn't built to that scale — the same reason a $75M company doesn't stand up its own Global Capability Center.
There's a practical win for HR, too: a Mini-GCC takes the offshore-sourcing-and-management burden off the team — they never have to become experts in managing talent half a world away.
And there's one more difference, the one that actually makes the model work. Your HR team represents the company — that's their job, and it's the right one. Kayana represents the operator; we're their advocate, the way an agent represents talent. That isn't a conflict with your interests — it's the engine behind them. An operator who has someone genuinely in their corner, looking out for their growth and their future, is an operator who stays and compounds. HR keeps the company healthy; we keep the talent thriving — which is exactly why the seat keeps getting more valuable instead of turning over.
Where are your operators based, and why does that matter?
Our operators are senior professionals in the Philippines — a collaborative work culture that integrates directly into your team and your hours, not a package-and-handoff model. The advantage isn't cheaper labor. It's access to capability and coverage you couldn't build locally, structured so it actually performs.