Neal LebarBusiness Process Design · AI-Enabled Systems

About Neal

Business experience.
Financial discipline.
Intelligent design.

I'm Neal Lebar. I've spent more than 40 years building and operating businesses, designing systems, and living with the consequences of business decisions.

Today, I bring that experience to business process design: understanding how work happens, deciding what should change, and guiding AI-assisted development toward a practical result.

Explore How I WorkView My Experience
Neal Lebar, entrepreneur and business advisor
“When you’ve sat in the hot seat you learn to be fast on your feet.”

The owner’s side of the table

I've carried the responsibility.

I've hired people, met payroll, managed cash flow, financed growth, developed sales, and been accountable for profitability. I know the difference between an idea that sounds promising and one the business can actually execute.

That experience shapes the questions I ask. What does the process cost? Who depends on it? Where could it break down? What would make the business work better?

My CPA and financial/accounting background, together with experience at IBM and Coopers & Lybrand, connects business judgment with financial discipline and an understanding of systems.

A professional evolution

From business foundations
to better business processes.

The tools have changed. Understanding the business has remained the starting point.

  1. Financial and business foundation

    Accounting, financial analysis, and business operations—including experience at IBM and Coopers & Lybrand—gave me a way to evaluate costs, controls, and the information management needs.

  2. Entrepreneur and business builder

    Building and operating businesses meant financing growth, developing sales, managing people, and designing operations that could support the business as it changed.

  3. Business systems developer

    I designed and implemented business applications, systems integrations, data workflows, and automation. Doing the technical work taught me what it takes to turn an operating requirement into a working system.

  4. AI-enabled business process designer

    Today, I concentrate on where experience adds the most value: evaluating operations, simplifying processes, defining controls, and guiding AI-assisted development. It is a progression built on technical expertise, with more attention on what should be built and why.

Experience behind the approach

Businesses built.
Systems put to work.

  • Systems integrationBuilt and sold a systems-integration company and developed business applications around operating needs.
  • Internet venturesCreated Internet startups, raised capital, and created Internet operations for a major diabetic-supply business.
  • Company operationsTurned around an underperforming software company and built public-company infrastructure.
  • Technology educationEstablished Microsoft education centers at more than 40 universities.
  • Ecommerce ownershipBuilt ecommerce businesses and owned and operated ICS Shoes for approximately 14 years.
  • Applied AIDesigned and developed the eXtenderWare platform, including Product Advisor and Market Intelligence applications.

Lessons from operating ecommerce

ICS Shoes made the challenges concrete.

For approximately 14 years, I owned and operated ICS Shoes. Customer needs, traffic acquisition, merchandising, complex product information, conversion, and daily operations all had to work together.

The experience helped shape eXtenderWare: structure a difficult buying decision, connect the information, and make customer behavior useful to the business. The same thinking applies to administrative work—improve the process and let people focus on customers and judgment.

The work today

Design the operation.
Then build the solution.

I evaluate business processes, redesign workflows, integrate systems, and use AI-assisted development to support implementation. Executive advisory remains part of that work: questioning assumptions, examining alternatives, and making candid assessments.

The aim is a simpler, more useful operation, with appropriate financial controls, dependable information, and less repetitive administration.

Explore the servicesSee the projects

Start with the business

Where could your business work better?

A process that takes too long, systems that don’t connect, or an improvement opportunity worth examining. Let’s discuss how the work happens today and what a better outcome would look like.

Email NealSchedule a conversation
neal@extenderware.com

If we connected through Upwork, please message me there so our conversation and any engagement remain on the platform. The contact options above are for personal introductions, referrals, and direct enquiries.