ONWRAPPED 2026 · 3 DECEMBER · LONDON
Running ops can feel like a sample size of one. Let’s compare notes.
Operations Nation’s new year-end format. Not only for operations leaders, but also for the founders, CEOs and investors who work alongside them.
Live data, short debates, honest stories and the people you’ll want to grab a coffee with in January. Then drinks.
📅 Thursday 3 December · doors 11:00am, last entry 12:15pm
📍 Google, King’s Cross · 🎟️ Free, registration required
1 afternoon
to see what changed in operations this year, and decide what to do about it in 2027
→ See how your role compares, on screen and in the room
→ Take a position on who owns the AI
→ Say out loud what you’re done owning
→ Meet your peers dealing with the same things you are
2026: the year we started comparing notes
For years, ops leaders have judged their role against a sample size of one: their own experience.
Is this remit normal?
Should I own the AI rollout?
Is losing half my week to fires a me problem, or a job problem?
This year we started answering those questions together: in Slack threads, at breakfasts, around dinner tables and through the Modern COO Benchmark. A few things became clear:
→ AI is landing on ops desks, often without the budget, decision rights or mandate to go with it.
→ Remits keep growing. If work doesn’t clearly belong anywhere, it finds its way to ops.
→ Prevention goes unnoticed. Good operations looks like nothing happened.
→ The ops profession finally has numbers. The Modern COO Benchmark gives the role a reference point beyond any one career.
ONwrapped puts all of it on one stage, and brings founders, CEOs and investors into the room, because they shape the conditions around the role.
What’s ON
Not a panel-panel-panel-drinks conference.
ONwrapped is set to be a fast-moving afternoon of short talks, debates and stories, each built around a question worth arguing about.
The room gets a vote. We’ll announce the full running order in November.
⏪ Look back
2026 in 10 minutes. The headlines, community moments, numbers and the more absurd realities of running ops, including the ops receipts you send us.
The year in numbers. ON Community trends, what the Modern COO Benchmark found, and more - all on screen, including how the room compares.
End of seasON: the COO Course. Nine cohorts, 180 operations leaders. Alumni on what changed when they stopped learning the job alone, and what carries on.
🥊 Argue it out
Why we keep fighting fires. Why does so much of the ops week go to firefighting? More on what happens when ops only gets noticed when something breaks.
Is the word “operations” costing us? Are you a strategic partner to the CEO, the person who makes it happen, or both?
Who owns the AI? Who decides where it goes, what gets funded and how it gets put to work. And what it shouldn’t touch.
🔮 Look ahead
ON 3.0. After five years, what’s next for Operations Nation, and how you can help shape it.
Five bets for 2027. Five predictions, scored by the room. We’ll bring them back at ONwrapped 2027 to see who was right.
What should ops leave behind? A roaming mic, one question, your answers on the closing screen.
And then… ReceptiON 🥂
Food, drinks and the conversations that didn’t fit into the afternoon. Between sessions, themed breaks around “what’s on your plate right now?” help you meet people working on the same things, not just whoever’s nearest the snacks station.
Who’s in the room
150+ people: operations leaders from the ON community and beyond, alongside founders, CEOs and investors.
If you run operations
COOs, Directors and VPs of Operations, Heads of Operations, Operations Leads and Managers, Chiefs of Staff…
→ How your role compares, so “is this normal?” has an answer you can take to your CEO
→ A position on AI ownership, before it lands on you by default
→ A shortlist of what to stop owning in 2027
→ People to call in January
If you’re a founder or CEO
→ An honest look at what your ops leader is carrying, and what separates a true partnership from “the person who makes it happen”
→ A clearer brief for ops in 2027: what to hand over, what to fund, who owns AI
→ A room full of ops leaders, whether you’re hiring your first COO or Head of Operations, or want a sparring partner for the one you have
If you’re an investor
→ A sharper eye for strong ops leadership in the founders you back
→ Direct access to the ops leaders your portfolio keeps asking you for
→ A ground-level view of how startups actually run, including where AI works and where it’s stuck in a pilot
Your ticket includes
🎤 The full afternoon
Doors at 11:00, programme from 12:30, ReceptiON until 8:30pm.
🤝 Connection with a purpose
Themed breaks and prompts to meet people working on the same problems, from either side of the table.
🍷 ReceptiON
Food and drinks after the programme, and the conversations that need longer than a break.
👥 Who’s coming, in advance
Names, roles, companies and LinkedIn of fellow guests, so you can plan who to find. Prefer not to be on it? Say so when you register (however, you then won’t get the list).
🎁 Your 2026 Ops Wrapped card
Years in ops, how many of the 27 business functions you own, where your week goes, the one thing you’re done owning. Flip it to compare with the Benchmark, then find the people whose cards look like yours.
🎥 The recordings
Every segment will be published as its own chapter, so you can forward the 12 minutes that matter to your CEO (or your ops lead).
On stage
The COO Coach. Founder @ London COO Roundtable. Formerly Director, COO & CFO @ Mind Candy.
Co-Founder of Operations Nation. Executive Director @ Ezrah Charitable Trust. Formerly COO @ AZA Finance, Lantum.
Co-Founder of Operations Nation. Formerly Head of Ops @ Reframe, Sphere (Acquired by Twitter), DICE, Director of Ops @ Just Eat for Business, YPlan.
More speakers announced soon
We’re finalising the line-up. Full programme announced in November.
Can’t make it to London? You’re still ON 🌍
Operations Nation is a global community, and ONwrapped isn’t only for the people in the room. The whole afternoon is filmed, and we’ll share the edited chapters with everyone the week after the event.
We’d also love to bring voices from outside London into the day itself. We’re working out the best way to do it, and we’ll share details soon.
Can’t be there in person? Please leave your spot for someone who can, and subscribe to our newsletter to get the recordings as soon as they’re out.
Send us your 2026 receipts 🧾
A screenshot, an SOP title, a bizarre calendar block, a crisis message, a redacted project plan. The best ones go on screen in “2026 in 10 minutes”.
Or answer one question: What did you prevent this year that nobody noticed? Selected answers go up on the Invisible Work Wall on the day.
Redact anything confidential. We anonymise everything before it goes on stage.
Submissions open soon
OPERATIONS NATION
2026 RECEIPT
--------------------------------
1 × screenshot ✓
1 × SOP title ✓
1 × bizarre calendar block ✓
1 × crisis message ✓
1 × redacted project plan ✓
--------------------------------
TOTAL Nothing broke
Thank you for operatingEvent partners
Thank you to the partners who make ONwrapped possible, and free to attend. More partners announced soon.
PRESENTING PARTNER
Ramp
Ramp helps businesses manage spending from purchase to payment. Its platform combines corporate cards, expense management, bill payments and purchasing with controls, approvals and accounting automation. Finance teams get a clearer view of spending, while employees have a simpler way to make purchases and submit expenses.
For ops leaders, especially in smaller teams where ops and finance overlap, that means fewer separate tools to manage spend, and one place to set limits and control vendor spend.
VENUE PARTNER
Google Cloud
Thank you to Google Cloud for hosting ONwrapped at their King’s Cross office.
Want to partner on ONwrapped? We work with a small number of partners whose products and services genuinely help operations leaders do the job. Email partnerships@operationsnation.com.