Section 9
§9 — Shared Services Backbone
Status: DRAFT
Principle: One platform, many tenants. Shared services are the difference between a campus that scales and twelve businesses each reinventing payroll.
9.1 What "shared services" means here
Assembly Atlanta is not a single business. It is a platform with multiple operating units (studio campus, hospitality, F&B, retail, programming, community/education) that each need the same back-office plumbing.
Shared services means: each unit consumes a service from a central function, on a documented service level, for a documented internal price (or zero, if subsidized for strategic reasons). It is the opposite of every unit hiring its own bookkeeper.
This isn't bureaucracy. It is the only way a 150-acre platform stays solvent and auditable as it scales.
9.2 The shared services map
| Service | Provider seat | Consumer units | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capital / Treasury | Officer + Finance/Capital Analyst | All | DRAFT |
| Accounting / Bookkeeping | Finance team (initially Gray-supported) | All | DRAFT |
| Legal — corporate, real estate, IP, employment | Officer + Gray legal + outside counsel panel | All | DRAFT |
| Insurance & Risk | Safety / Risk Officer (fractional) | All | TBD |
| HR / Payroll / Benefits | Gray HR shared until threshold | All | DRAFT |
| IT / Cybersecurity | Gray IT shared until threshold | All | DRAFT |
| Procurement | Operating Lead | All | PROPOSED |
| Brand / Marketing standards | Marketing Lead | All campus-facing units | DRAFT |
| Government & Community Relations | GovRel Lead | All | DRAFT |
| Safety, Security, Emergency Response | Safety / Risk Officer + venue ops | All | DRAFT — see §16 |
| Data / Reporting / BI | Finance + IT | All | PROPOSED |
| Customer / Visitor data | Marketing + IT, governed by privacy counsel | All public-facing units | TBD |
9.3 Cost allocation logic
Three options, ranked by simplicity:
1. Direct charge (preferred where measurable): unit pays for what it uses (e.g., square footage for facilities, headcount for HR).
2. Allocation by revenue or headcount: for services that are diffuse (e.g., legal, executive time).
3. Strategic subsidy (call it out): a service provided below cost because it supports a strategic objective (e.g., community programming, GovRel). Subsidies are named in the §12 financials, never buried.
Naming the subsidies is what protects us. The moment a subsidy is hidden inside an allocation, the unit looks more profitable than it is and the platform looks less profitable than it is. Both distortions are fatal at audit time.
9.4 The "do not duplicate" rule
Once a service is centralized, individual units may not stand up their own version without a documented exception approved by the officer seat.
The most common failure mode in mixed-use platforms is letting each unit hire its own bookkeeper, its own marketer, its own IT vendor. Within 18 months you have parallel systems, no consolidated reporting, and a forensic mess. We are getting ahead of that now.
9.5 What we share with Gray (and what we don't)
| Function | Shared with Gray? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| HR / Payroll / Benefits | Yes — until headcount threshold | Then split |
| IT / Cybersecurity | Yes — until threshold | Gray standards remain the floor |
| Legal corporate | Coordinated, not merged | Conflict-of-interest checks |
| Brand / Marketing | No — Assembly brand is its own | Coordinated voice, separate execution |
| Treasury / Capital | Coordinated | Gray officer overlap is the bridge |
| Procurement | Independent, can leverage Gray scale | Especially insurance and IT |
The bright line: operational shared services are fine; brand-facing functions are not shared. Assembly Atlanta brand and Gray brand serve different audiences and must stay distinct in the market.
9.6 Service levels — the discipline
Every shared service needs three things documented:
1. Scope — what's included, what's not
2. SLA — response times, escalation path
3. Price or allocation — direct, allocated, or subsidized (and why)
Without these, "shared services" becomes "the campus officer fields it personally" — which is exactly the problem we are solving.
9.7 Open questions for CEO sign-off
- CONFIRM Default to Gray-shared HR/IT until threshold? (recommended yes)
- CONFIRM Subsidized GovRel and Community programming as line items in the platform P&L? (recommended yes — protects credibility)
- TBD Which procurement categories run through Gray's scale advantage vs. campus-direct?
FLAG Today, several "shared services" are in fact the officer seat doing the work. That is not shared services — that is overload disguised as a structure. The §22 register tracks this honestly.