Are you an aspiring or first-time COO? Have no fear, we’re here to support you on this hard, but rewarding, journey.
From our collective 10 years of running operations communities, we see far too many people:
- Wanting to become COOs, but lacking the skills or confidence to pursue these roles
- Falling into or getting promoted into COO roles without being fully prepared for the challenges they will face managing upwards, laterally, downwards, and diagonally.
Having spent a collective 30 years as operations leaders ourselves, we’re passionate about equipping the next generation of startup COOs with the tools they need not only to survive but thrive in their roles.
Do It Yourself:
Read our “Survival Guide for COOs”
There are very few books entirely dedicated to the role of a Chief Operating Officer, and all of them are focused on corporates, not startups.
We’re on a mission to share with you the world’s first-ever book for startup COOs, by startup COOs. Stay tuned as we drop a chapter each month in 2023.
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- Kalie Gold, COO at Jacaranda Health
- Dan Blake, COO at Florence
- Kristen Shannon, Former COO of Oxford Ionics and General System
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- Paul David Mather, Ex-Deliveroo, Ops Consultant
- Riley McGee, COO at PVL
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- Uzo Okoro, Head of Operations at Fincra
- Ajay Palekar - Former COO of WorkClub
- James da Costa - Co-Founder and COO at Fingo
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- Sabrina Castiglione - COO of Pento.io
- Nick Larkins - Chief of Staff at Dishpatch
- Ghilaine Chan, Chief of Staff at Hubbub Fundraising
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Do It With Us:
Participate in our course for aspiring / first-time COOs.
We’ve designed a course to help operations leaders build up their skills and confidence to land the difficult-to-define role of a startup COO role and succeed in it.
We will be running our first iteration from January to March 2023, exclusively with ON Community members. To express interest in joining our next cohort, send an email to coo-course@operationsnation.com.
The course is built around the following competency framework:
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- Self-Awareness: Ability to identify, understand and communicate your personal and professional strengths and weaknesses
- Stress Management: Ability to juggle multiple tasks and projects in a high-pressure environment
- Self-Care: Ability to set boundaries, say no to others, and carve out time to care for/invest in yourself
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- Strategic and Operational Planning: Ability to translate your company strategy into a realistic operational plan
- Organisational Design: Ability to help shape your org chart/accountabilities as the company grows and scales (centralisation vs. decentralisation of ops)
- Fundraising, Budgeting and Financial Planning: Ability to help your CEO and CFO raise and manage financial resources
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- Organisational Performance and Analytics: Ability to aggregate, report upon, and influence the cross-functional metrics that matter most
- People Operations: Ability to help ensure your company attracts, hires, onboards, manages, and develops employees in a sustainable way
- Customer Operations: Ability to help ensure your company attracts, onboards, manages, and retains customers in a sustainable way
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- Your Role with respect to the CEO: Ability to navigate the politics of managing upwards
- Your Role on the Exec Team: Ability to Influence Laterally
- Your Role as a Manager: Ability to Manage Managers versus Manage Individual Contributors
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- Internal Communications: Ability to communicate from All-Hands Meetings to Cross-Functional Projects
- External Communications: Ability to manage and communicate to Board Members and Investors
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FAQs
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- 10 Week Program split across 5 Sessions
- 1:1 Mentorship by an experienced COO
- Private Slack group so you and your cohort can keep in touch in between sessions
- Ability to put “Operations Nation COO Course” on your CV and LinkedIn profile
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- Sessions will be facilitated by the 3 Co-Founders of Operations Nation:
- Charlene Chen, the Co-Founder and former COO of emerging markets fintech company AZA Finance, as well as former COO of UK healthtech Lantum
- Aušrinė Keršanskaitė, Head of Operations at Reframe, former Head of Operations at Sphere (acquired by Twitter), Director of Operations at YPlan and Dice
- Astrid Verstraete, an Operations Manager and Consultant at startups including YPlan, Wagestream, and Coefficient.
- Sessions will feature experienced COO guest speakers (TBA shortly) from our community and beyond, sharing their wisdom and war stories.
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- Our guiding principle is to keep all the content engaging and applicable. Therefore the course will be a mix of “I do, we do, you do”, as in, experienced COOs will share their personal experiences and favorite frameworks, we’ll guide you through exercises to learn new skills, and give you opportunities to apply the skills we discuss on the job in between sessions.
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- First-time COOs are MORE than welcome to take the course - many of us receive our COO titles before we feel fully equipped for the role, and usually, we receive very little professional development from within our organisations.
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- We highly encourage everyone to prioritise attending all sessions in order to get the most value out of the course, but if you absolutely can’t avoid it, we will send you the materials and a recording of the class (only online sessions).
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- Depending on what we learn from this first iteration, we may modify the course design, but you can expect that we will run at least 2 more cohorts during 2023.
General COO Resources
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Understanding the COO Role
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Succeeding in the COO Role
The DNA of the COO: Time to claim the spotlight
Why is so little known about the role of the COO, despite its long history? This report provides much-needed insight into what it is to be a COO today.
http://www.agileleanhouse.com/lib/lib/Organizations/EY/DNA of the COO.pdf
Being the CEO's Right Hand: What COOs Really Think
Findings from a survey of 52 COOs and operations executives on a range of topics, including COOs' top priorities and what they think will be their future role.
https://www.americanbanker.com/slideshow/being-the-ceos-right-hand-what-coos-really-think
The top 3 challenges for a COO - and how to manage them
COO role is complex and difficult to understand. Article by Naomi Bowman, diving deeper into the top COO challenges.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/top-3-challenges-coo-how-manage-them-naomi-bowman-fica-aca/
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Helping Others Understand the Value of a COO
Do you have any questions about these resources?
Would you like to contribute to the Survival Guide for COOs or the Aspiring / First-Time COO Course?
If so, get in touch and let’s chat! You’ll find us at hello@operationsnation.com.