Thruxton & Kendall advises leadership teams as growing hardware and deep-tech companies move from startup infrastructure to scaled operations. We help you make the right decisions about technology strategy, operating model, investment, governance, and organizational capability; then work alongside your teams to turn those decisions into action.
Operator-led advisory for VC and PE-backed companies navigating growth, manufacturing, new facilities, regulatory complexity, and enterprise scale.
Early-stage technology environments are built for speed. Ownership is informal, teams wear multiple hats, and systems evolve around immediate needs.
That works until the company begins to scale.
New facilities come online. Manufacturing introduces operational dependencies. Security and compliance expectations rise. SaaS spending expands. Engineering, IT, and Security responsibilities begin to overlap. What were once isolated technology decisions start affecting the entire business.
Thruxton & Kendall works with leadership teams at this inflection point.
We bring an operator's perspective to the decisions that determine how enterprise technology should evolve by determining what to prioritize, where to invest, how teams should be structured, where ownership belongs, and what capabilities need to exist before complexity becomes a constraint on growth.
Our role is not to replace your internal teams or implementation partners. We provide the senior technology leadership needed to give them direction, alignment, and a clear path forward.
Thruxton & Kendall works with VC and PE-backed hardware and deep-tech companies that have outgrown startup-era technology practices but do not yet need, or are not yet ready for, a full-time CIO.
Our clients are typically navigating one or more of the following:
Rapid headcount growth or organizational scale
New facilities, manufacturing sites, or geographic expansion
Increasing security, compliance, or customer requirements
Growing complexity across SaaS, identity, infrastructure, and vendors
Blurred ownership between IT, Security, Engineering, and business teams
A capable internal IT team that needs stronger strategic direction
A transition from reactive technology support to a more mature operating model
Our strongest fit is with companies in aerospace, mobility, robotics, advanced manufacturing, defense, industrial technology, and other complex physical-world technology sectors.
Thruxton & Kendall was built by an enterprise technology operator who has led technology through hypergrowth, international expansion, complex engineering environments, regulated industries, and large-scale operational change.
Our perspective comes from doing the work inside aerospace, automotive, and advanced technology companies — building teams, scaling infrastructure, establishing governance, launching new sites, and partnering with executive leadership to turn technology into an operating advantage.
We help leadership teams make better technology decisions at moments of growth, complexity, and change.
Define the priorities, ownership, governance, and organizational structure required to support the next stage of the business.
Prepare enterprise technology for rapid headcount growth, new facilities, manufacturing operations, geographic expansion, and increasing operational dependency.
Align technology decisions with evolving customer, regulatory, and security requirements without creating unnecessary friction for the business.
Provide senior enterprise technology leadership when the company needs CIO-level perspective and decision support, but is not yet ready for a full-time executive hire.
Emily Roy is an enterprise technology operator with experience building and leading technology organizations across aerospace, automotive, and advanced engineering environments. Her work has centered on the moments when rapid growth, geographic expansion, manufacturing, security requirements, and organizational complexity force a company to rethink how technology is run.
Most recently, as Director of IT Infrastructure & Platforms at Archer Aviation, Emily led a global technology organization and $20M portfolio supporting the company through rapid growth and increasing operational complexity. Previously, as Head of IT at Rivian & Volkswagen Group Technologies, she partnered with executive leadership to define the technology roadmap and operating model for the newly formed joint venture. At Rivian Automotive, she helped scale global IT operations across North America and Europe, supporting more than 35 site launches and the opening of Rivian's 400-person software engineering hub in Belgrade, Serbia.
Emily founded Thruxton & Kendall to bring that operating experience to leadership teams facing the same transition: the point where technology can no longer be managed as a collection of tools and projects and must become a deliberate business capability.
Thruxton & Kendall intentionally works with a select number of clients. Effective advisory requires context, judgment, and proximity to the business. Not just recommendations delivered from the outside.
If your company is scaling faster than its technology operating model, preparing for a major transition, or simply needs a more senior point of view on what comes next, a first conversation can help create clarity.
Book a 25-minute briefing to discuss where the business is today, what is changing, and whether a strategic engagement, ongoing advisory relationship, or fractional leadership arrangement is the right fit.
Book a 25-Minute Briefing Or reach us directly · hello@thruxtonkendall.com