Filip SzczecinskiRobert StevensonPete FinlaySouky DolinsekTy Wolfe-JonesMilly BarkerElani BuchanJie LowMinisha GoelBrian SnyderWill HerrmannDavid FogelSarah TouzaniNeda SahebelmJeremy CostaClaudia Cafeo
WHERE? Glaziers Hall, London, United Kingdom
WHEN? 25-26 October (Friday and Saturday)
WHO? COOs, Heads of Ops, Directors of Ops, VPs of Ops, and many other operations leaders from startups and scaleups
WHAT?
40+ interactive roundtables 💬
24+ inspiring speakers 💡
2 full days of community and learning ✨
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What’s included in your ticket? 🎟️
- Two days of learning: plenary sessions, roundtables, activities, and more 🧠
- Countless structured and unstructured networking opportunities with your fellow operations leaders 👋
- Access plenary session recordings after the cONference 🍿
- Opportunity to get your professional headshot taken on Saturday 📸
- Goodies and swag from Operations Nation and our Partners 🕶
- Delicious breakfast and lunch on both days 😋
- Two evenings of fun and connection (with both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages) 🎉
Our theme this year: Evolution 🌱
Through various interactive experiences, we’ll be focusing on:
- Your personal growth as an ops person: including the importance of mentorship, and exploring diverse career paths in operations)
- Progress in internal operations: the opportunities and challenges of evolving technologies, practical applications of various tools and automations, and the growing role of AI in operations
- Reframing operations externally and our shared mission to help everyone recognise the strategic value of operations
Plenary sessions 💡
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Interactive roundtables and activities 💬
Over the last 7 years of Operations Nation (including our early communities of Ops Stories, COOhort, and COO Stories), we’ve run hundreds of roundtables, both in real life and online.
We found that community-led roundtables are a wonderful way to connect with peers who’re going through a similar challenge / stage of development.
The format is simple: someone kicks off with a challenge they’re currently facing, or a topic at the forefront of their minds, and then the conversation begins.
When you join a roundtable, you can participate as much or as little as you’d like.
We hope that the discussion will be engaging enough for you to want to share your experiences with others. But we also know that sometimes it can be daunting to speak up in front of people you don’t yet know, so it’s totally fine if all that you say is your name during introduction.
We’ll be running over 40 roundtables and activities across the two days:
- Connect and discuss a topic of interest in small groups of 10-20 people.
- All roundtables and activities will be community-led and partner-led.
- Roundtable topics are informed by everyone who’ll be at the cONference - when you register, you’ll have an opportunity to let us know what you’re expecting to discuss at our event, and we take your opinion/request seriously!
- You will be able to sign up to specific roundtables and activities before the cONference.
Partner-led roundtables:
Register to see the full list of sessions!
| Title | Main topics | Facilitator(s) |
|---|---|---|
- What does it take for a UK/EU tech company to compete and win in the US? - How do we meet the expectations of US investors, commercial partners, employees, and acquirors? | ||
- How do we upskill technically by 1%, 10% or even 50%? - What does “more technical” look like and why does it even matter? | ||
- What makes a strong ESG framework? - What are the integral types of insurance? - How do we improve ESG in our businesses? | ||
- What are the typical pains we encounter during rapid growth? - How do we scale operations without sacrificing agility? | ||
- What does “good” look like for legal operations as you scale? - What’s the Legal Goldilocks Principle and how do we use it to get things right? - What legal resourcing models are available and when should we use which one? - What tech should we use to manage risk and compliance? | ||
- When should we hire a specialist or a generalist based on the company’s stage and goals? - What are the financial and operational benefits of specialist and generalist hires? |
Community-led roundtables:
Register to see the full list of sessions!
| Title | Main topics | Facilitator(s) |
|---|---|---|
- What is coaching and what isn’t? - What is mentorship? - How do we use both? - How do we find the right coach or mentor? | ||
- What’s it like to work as a Fractional COO (no BS)? - How should we position ourselves in the market? - What should we consider before transitioning from full-time to fractional? | ||
- What is the purpose and value of the role of a Chief of Staff? - What’s the difference between a CoS and a COO? - How do I get into a CoS role - and what’s next from there? | ||
- When should / shouldn’t we automate processes? - Why it is useful to keep up with automations / AI changes? - Current challenges and best practices | ||
- How do we identify where we need more processes and where we don’t? - When does a process become a process for process’ sake? - How do we get better outcomes, faster? |
Why attend? ✅
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You’ll be in great company! ✨
- 70% of all attendees are the most senior operations leaders in their companies: COOs, Operations Directors, VP Ops, Heads of Operations and the likes.
- 20% of all attendees are aspiring operations leaders.
- 10% of all attendees are company founders who also wear operations hats as well as professionals in other roles who, for one reason or another, are curious about operations (we don’t blame them!)
- Most of our cONference attendees represent Seed to Series B companies.
What our attendees are saying about cONference 2023:
“I met so many great people (new friends and old), I heard some really thought-provoking and exciting points of view, and I was so honoured to get the chance to share my opinions as a speaker.” - Milly Barker, Fractional COO at Pay As You Go COO
“...the talks were really thought out and the speakers really put themselves out and showed a lot of vulnerability in sharing their stories.” - Ilaria Barbon, Operations Lead at FLOX, former COO of Ok Mentor
“Lots of insights from great speakers! Got to see some of the community in person for the first time too so that was really nice. Just felt very supported in the community.” - Jasmeet Chana, Operations Director at Multicultural Marketing Consultancy
“What a fantastic event! The sessions were super informative and insightful, and the networking opportunities were super valuable.” - Cibelle Michepud, Senior Director of Operations at ICP
“Best conference ever!!!!!” - Penny Penati, Head of Operations, Addition
“Lots of ideas, motivation, and also comfort that Ops is hard and mistakes are part of the role!” - John Taylor, COO at Minviro
“Great to hear insights from other industry experts and to meet others from different businesses facing similar challenges.” - Nicola Bradshaw, Head of Operations at Scan.com
“A reminder of the breadth, quality and diversity of Ops leaders. Great networking opportunity and a very positive, uplifting outlook on the future of the discipline.” - Tom Fraine, Co-CEO (formerly COO) at Zoa
“Honestly amazing! As someone in ops I do really sometimes feel very alone and unseen and it is communities like these that help me on my hard days!” - Sumé von Berg, Director of Finance and Operations at Attio
“Incredibly insightful day and great to network with fellow ops geeks. 10/10!” - Matthew Robinson, Operations Director at Cuvva
Speakers 👋
Co-Founder of Operations Nation, Head of Operations @ Reframe. Formerly Head of Ops @ Sphere (Acquired by Twitter), DICE, Director of Ops @ Just Eat for Business, YPlan.
Co-host of The Operations Room podcast, COO @ Peak Sr VP Strategy @ NewVoiceMedia.
Co-Founder & COO @ Aide Health. Formerly COO @ Black Swan Data, Executive Business Director @ AKQA.
Co-Founder of Operations Nation. Executive Director @ Ezrah Charitable Trust. Formerly COO @ AZA Finance, Lantum.
Fractional CCO/COO, Co-Founder @ Bramble Club, Alma Angels. Venture Partner @ Climate VC. Co-Founder & Leader @ Israeli Tech Parliament. Formerly Head of Portfolio, Accelerate, and Venture Partner @ ZINC VC, CCO/COO @ Wefarm, Co-Founder @ ADV.
Fractional COO, Head of Operations @ Bondaval. Formerly COO @ Concured, Head of Operations @ Mint & Co, Tabl.
Business Operations Manager @ Plane, Operations Consultant @ Exciting Ops. Formerly Head of Ops @ HCM Deck, CallPage.io.
Business Impact Manager at Modulr. Formerly Chief of Staff @ Lantum, Head of Ops & People @ Beam, COO @ ManíLife.
Co-Founder & COO @ Gigantec.com, Formerly the first Chief of Staff @ Google and COO @ Softbank.
COO @ Dexory. Founder and CEO @ Highliner Technology. Formerly COO @ Oxford Ionics, General System, Strategy & Operations Consultant @ Cisco Meraki.
Founder and Fractional COO @ Pay As You Go COO. Serial COO across industries and sectors. Formerly Chief of Staff @ Cognism, Business Development & Strategic Consultancy @ Amazon UK.
Founder @ MindShift AI, Gen AI Consultant and Trainer. Formerly Head of Ops @ Faethm by Pearson, Management Consultant @ BCS Consulting (part of Accenture) and Cognizant.
Fractional COO & Founder @ keshty, fractional COO @ MindsetShift, Wealthbrite, Scale Advisor @ DOHE. Formerly Head of Data Programmes @ Multiverse.
Fractional COO. Formerly COO @ Encore Musicians, Coconut and Songkick, Co-Founder & CEO @ Silicon Milkroundabout.
COO @ Subak. Formerly Head of Ops @ Faculty, Corethree, Head of Product & Proposition @ GDPQ.
Co-Founder & CEO @ Waggle AI. Formerly COO @ Creditspring, Director of Ops @ PassFort.
Executive Chairman @ Intrinsic Labs. Founder & CEO @ STIR Education. Formerly Founding CEO @ Ambition School Leadership, Founding Head of eBay for Charity. Globally recognised author supporting leaders and organisations.
COO @ Goodsted fractional COO/Director of Operations. Formerly Founding CEO @ ZING, Head of Finance & Ops @ Valuedynamx.
Startup COO Sherpa. Co-Founder & Co-Host at Climate Mayhem podcast. Formerly Director, People Systems & Talent Development @ Assurance IQ, COO @ Wrench, General Manager @ DoorDash, Ops & Logistics @ Uber, Ops Director @ Tango Card.
Fractional COO/CFO, CFO @ Cubitts. Formerly Chief Strategy Officer @ Campaign Against Living Miserably, Financial Director @ ScaleUp Capital, Chief Financial Officer @ Forward Partners, COO @ MyRecovery.
Partners 🙌
We partner with companies whose products and services truly bring value to operations leaders and we work together with our partners to create an unforgettable experience for our attendees.
This includes:
- the content of the event in the form of collaborative roundtables that foster deep and meaningful interactions
- the physical aspects such as the venue, the food, the beverages, and the after-party
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Our cONference 2024 partners:
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Law firm focused on U.S. launch, expansion, fundraising, partnerships, M&As, and IPOs
We’re also grateful to our cONference affiliate partners who provided free or heavily discounted products and services. It truly takes a village!
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