Lovelace OS
A personal desktop OS in the browser — draggable windows, a dock, a job queue, and a shared message bus where AIDA, Hermes agents and Claude Code hand work back and forth alongside you.
PythonSQLiteSSEMCPHermesVanilla JS
Co-founder of Pivotal Path · open to consulting & fractional work
I build AI systems that turn hours of work into minutes — and disjointed data into executive strategy.
I'm James Hayward-Zhu — Customer Success Operations Manager at Verint and co-founder of Pivotal Path. Sixteen years revitalising customer relationships through data and AI-driven strategies.
90%
faster Success Plan creation
$3B
post-acquisition data unified
120%
peak renewal & growth
1,000+
accounts
Selected work
Things I've Built
Side-projects, client tools and internal systems — where AI agents, local-first software, and ambitious system-level implementation meet. Mostly vibe-coded passion projects, built to take an idea as far as it'll go rather than ship something safe for everyone.
TextTone
Paste text, pick from 13 tone presets (Professional, Excited, Pirate!), set an intensity dial, get a side-by-side rewrite. All local via Ollama, no cloud.
PythonOllamaVanilla JS
Hermes Trickster
Visual editor for Hermes AI agent skills: interactive graph with loop detection, no-YAML editor with live @-autocomplete, health checks that explain silent failures.
ElectronTypeScriptOllama
MCPBuddy
Always-on dashboard for Docker MCP servers — running tools, endpoint status, and ready-to-paste connection configs for Claude Desktop, Claude Code, and Cursor.
PythonFastAPIDockerMCP
Voice Notes
One-press voice recorder in the Lovelace dock: live waveform, local Whisper transcription streaming line-by-line, keyword-searchable note archive. No cloud.
PythonWeb Audio APIFaster-WhisperSQLite
BulkBlogger
Squarespace has no real way to bulk-import posts — this gets as close to automated as possible. Converts a whole folder of Markdown into a Squarespace-ready WordPress WXR import, as a drag-and-drop web tool, a CLI with scheduling, or an MCP server.
TypeScriptViteMCPNode
Hotel Nox Combat Tracker
Offline-first single-file TTRPG combat tracker for an ongoing campaign: hex map, JRPG-style action menus, status effects, VFX/SFX, monster template generator.
Vanilla JSPythonlocalStorage
Salt Voice (client)
Marketing site for a private speech and language therapy practice — multi-page React app with custom design tokens and a live in-browser theme tweaker for the client.
ReactViteCSS Tokens
Lovelace Arcade
20+ canvas games inside Lovelace OS: bullet-hell survival, tower defence, AI dungeon master RPG, match-3, endless runner, top-down drifting racer, hex strategy.
Vanilla JSCanvas APIOllama
Pivotal Path
Fractional & consulting.
As co-founder of Pivotal Path, I help SaaS teams bridge data silos, optimise customer success and turn manual processes into AI-driven workflows. Seven service strands, one operator.
pivotalpath.co.ukStrand 01
Customer Success strategy & ops
Scalable success strategies, CSP rollouts and tech-touch models. Tackle churn and low engagement with data-driven operations that lift retention and revenue.
Strand 02
Data management & CRM integration
Data cleansing, standardisation and CRM integration. Link disparate systems into cohesive analytics — Fabric, Power BI, SQL, Pendo, Salesforce.
Strand 03
Digital Transformation 2.0
Connect the digital ecosystem, streamline workflows and eliminate silos so the business operates efficiently and intelligently end-to-end.
Strand 04
Customer Journey Mapping workshops
Intensive 'Burn the Churn' workshops that tackle real CS challenges without costly overhauls. Align priorities, ship practical changes fast.
Strand 05
AI & automation
Multi-agent AI ecosystems, copilot bots, LLM integration and automated workflow design that turns hours of grunt work into minutes.
Strand 06
Support desk optimisation
Tune help-desk operations for quicker resolution, happier agents and improved ROI — a service desk that minimises downtime instead of creating it.
Strand 07
Bespoke digital projects & design
Custom builds from app development to branding and UX, delivered through a vetted network of specialists when scope goes beyond ops.
Toolbox
Skills & tools
The stack behind the work — from multi-agent AI and BI pipelines to the customer-success platforms and CRMs I run day to day.
AI & automation
- Multi-agent AI systems
- LLM integration (Claude)
- Copilot & utility bots
- Workflow automation
- MCP
Data & analytics
- Microsoft Fabric
- Power BI
- Power Query / Data Flows
- SQL
- Pendo
Customer Success & CRM
- Totango (CSP)
- Salesforce (admin & migration)
- Tech-touch models
- Retention & onboarding
Vibe-coding
- AI-assisted building (Claude Code, Cursor, Ollama)
- Rapid prototyping
- Local-first & offline apps
- MCP servers & tooling
Career
Sixteen years in the trenches.
- Sept 2022 — Present
Verint Systems
Customer Success Operations ManagerBuilt a multi-agent Success Plan AI agent cutting creation time from 3 hours to 10–15 minutes (90% gain). Integrated Claude LLM for market-news 'elevator pitch' summaries into Totango. Led the CSP V2 rollout, unifying legacy data via Microsoft Fabric and Power BI after Verint's $3B Thoma Bravo acquisition.
- Harvard Business School Online — Negotiation Mastery
- Ongoing volunteer with Special Effect, adapting game controllers for children with disabilities.
- 2021 — 2022
Conversocial (acquired by Verint)
Customer Success ManagerDesigned the tech-touch model for sub-£100k ACV accounts, then drove the retention targets the Verint acquisition depended on through the transition.
- 2016 — 2021
Orlo / SocialSignIn
CS & Account Management Director → Senior CSM (shareholder)Joined the board and took over a struggling customer-success team, building the systems and training that lifted renewals from 70% to 85%+ — peaking over 120% with CS-qualified leads — while holding a 99% satisfaction rating. Ran a £1.2M mid-market book of 42 complex accounts across charity, housing and finance, and supported 200+ client organisations and 5,000+ users.
- Delivered training for Virgin Trains, National Express and Sussex Police.
- 2014 — 2016
HandsHQ
Account Manager & Salesforce AdminPersonal point of contact for a SaaS risk-assessment platform's customers and its email-marketing lead, delivering hundreds of live demos. As Salesforce process admin, single-handedly ran the company's move to Salesforce — building the email and scheduling integrations and custom functions around it.
- Established the company's first processes for monitoring renewals, where there had been no customer-success planning before.
- 2014
Streaming Tank
Account Management & MarketingRan gaming-sector accounts and won new business through creative pitching — including a Sony PlayStation relationship I established from scratch and supported at their GamesCom keynote, plus campaign pitches to Paddy Power, Metal Hammer and Rimmel London.
- 2010 — 2014
Time Etc
Account ManagerManaged 70% of the team's clients and call-handling for 300+ firms. Diagnosed why targets kept slipping, restructured training and account allocation to hit them for the first time in the company's history, and redesigned the entry-level price plan to win new clients at no extra operating cost.
Education & certifications
2020
Certificate in Negotiation Mastery
Harvard Business School Online
8-week, 40-hour certificate in value creation, deal-making, and resolving differences before they escalate.
2010
BA, Social Policy
University of Birmingham
Social-sector and behavioural marketing, policy modelling, and qualitative & quantitative research methods.
Recommendations
What people say.
A few words from managers, clients and colleagues across sixteen years — the full set lives on LinkedIn.
“I was always impressed with his creativity and out-of-the-box thinking. It really allowed us to scale our customer success organization in a meaningful way — I would welcome the opportunity to work with James again.”
Mat Barnwell
Entrepreneur · managed James
“His style of management is both personable and professional. He is very much the enabler — his handling of escalations and client issues is great. He has taken churning contacts and turned them into engaged, enthusiastic users of our app.”
Ben Kelly
Product Owner, Orlo · reported to James
“Always with the client's needs in mind, and always reliable and prompt with responses. James also goes the extra mile, offering to visit our London and Cardiff offices despite travelling from Birmingham. What a great guy to work with.”
Amanda Green
Content Designer · James's client
“A caring and conscientious contributor. He wears many hats — technical support, onboarding, training, mentoring, finance — an integral cog in the machine which would cease to function without his dedication.”
Nickie Ferns
Business Development Director · senior colleague
“A creative, lateral thinker. James is great at upselling to existing clients and has proved to be an essential part of the team, using email as a tool for business generation.”
Karrie Conner
Founder · managed James
“An excellent creative thinker, skilled and accurate in his communication of ideas. Invaluable from initial copy and creative process through to project execution — and through his natural leadership he helps build others around him.”
Edward Mellish
Production & Operations Strategy · senior colleague
“An incredibly talented people manager who truly cares about the company he works for. A great listener, always available with whatever you need. An asset to any company.”
Adam Smith
Performance marketing · worked with James
“James played an important role in helping us develop and implement our workflows for social media during Clearing 2017 — a very valuable member of the team, providing insight and support throughout. I thoroughly look forward to working with him again.”
Jord Muckley
Digital & paid social · James's client
“James has demonstrated determination and a willingness to support every colleague in driving projects forward — an asset to the team, a highly-motivated player who brings enthusiasm to any task.”
Greg Adams
Managing Director, BOXROX · senior colleague
“His imaginative approach to solving problems and building campaigns never ceases to amaze me. Always putting in 110%, he's an asset to any company — creative direction and input with excellent client communication and management.”
Martin Lewis-Dalgarno
Tech & product · worked across industries with James
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