If you’re an aspiring or first-time COO, 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 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 are so grateful to celebrate our latest cohort who completed the course in November! 🥳
Cohort 4 is full and we are excited to announce that applications are open for Cohort 5! Applications close on 11.59pm (BST) Friday 19 April.
Cohort 5 starts Tuesday 4th June at 9.30am (BST) and runs weekly on Tuesdays at 9.30am (BST) until 20 August.
What will it contribute to your career and your organisation?
What is included in the course?
📚 11-Week course covering Operation Nation’s “Core Competencies for a Strong COO” (see below for the breakdown of topics)
We are excited to build out the course into a more modular experience; which will include 3 core elements
- 🎞️ Pre-recorded videos focusing on the principles & guidelines of the related competency
- 🎤 Guest speaker sessions featuring experienced COO guest speakers from the ON Community and beyond sharing their wisdom and war stories (see FAQs for previous speakers), and to enable deeper Q&A.
- 💬 Fortnightly cohort discussion/war-rooming sessions. This will be participant only - with a facilitator from Operations Nation.
You’ll also get
- 💡 Optional 1:1 Office Hours with the Course Facilitators at any time during the Course
- 📝 Course workbook and case studies from ON’s “Survival Guide for Startup COOs”
- 🤫 A private group where you and your cohort can keep in touch in between sessions and after the course
- 🏆 The chance to put your Operations Nation COO Course certificate on your CV and LinkedIn profile (so long as you attend 80% of the course)
Topics covered in this course
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FAQs
- Sessions will be facilitated by one of the co-founders and head of learning at Operations Nation:
- Charlene Chen - Co-founder of Operations Nation, the Co-Founder and former COO of emerging markets fintech company AZA Finance, as well as former COO of UK healthtech Lantum
- Bre McQuade, Head of Learning at Operations Nation, Fractional COO at Team Empathy, and founder of The Ops Spark.
- Sessions will feature experienced COO guest speakers from our community and beyond, sharing their wisdom and war stories. Our first cohort featured:
- Milly Barker, Serial Interim COO
- Jonathan Bullock, Google's first Chief of Staff and former COO of Softbank
- Jeff Courtney, Former COO of Wiserfunding
- Ben Gateley, Co-Founder & Former COO of CharlieHR
- Antonia Hammer, Managing Director of share
- Kristen Shannon, Former COO of Oxford Ionics and General System
- Becca Sweetman, Ex-Babylon, Ex-MOO
- Chris Varin, COO of Car & Classic
- Glen Walker, COO of Nous and former COO of Trouva
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Cohort 5 starts 4 June! You can apply now >>
- If you can’t make Cohort 5; join the waitlist to be invited to apply for future session of the course 🙏🏻
The course is GBP 1,199 (+ tax)
The journey of the course is focused on organisations mostly at the seed to Series B stage. A lot of guest speakers do come from tech and start-up > scaleup backgrounds so will share more from that experience. We have had people who work for NFPs join the course in the past as well who have gotten a lot from it.
As the course is for COOs/people soon to step into COO roles we tend to see people experience similar things that sit more at the strategic level of thought rather than technical (so more about how to navigate relationships with CEO, board, other c-suite, fundraising, strategy, building the business etc.).
That being said, some people's experiences may not specifically align, however we have found that there is always something to listen for in other people's experiences.
The estimated time to budget is three to four hours (this includes the hour guest speaker session; up to 30 minutes of videos; and time for pre & post work). Our key aim is that this work can be integrated / practiced in your work - a quick note that there will be additional calls added in for peer learning/deep dive.
We introduced the purchasing power parity discounts, based on country, this year. Being a global community meant this was a priority for us.
At this time this is the only reduced price we offer. As we continue to grow and get into a position which enables us to explore a variety of payment opportunities, we will look to roll something out in future cohorts.
Feedback from our previous cohorts
"I think it helped me to gain a solid foundation of what to expect as a COO. It also really helped me gain a sense of validation in my skillset and my approach to Operations. This has been invaluable as I've had a lot of doubt on both of these, but I better understand that that comes as part of the role and how it's viewed in organisations."
"I now have more clarity over: (a) definition of COO role, (b) next steps required to be COO, (c) frameworks/peer support to actions that I had already considered but didn't have the confidence to push through.”
"I feel a lot more confident in my role - sometimes you don't know what you don't know and running through so many different elements was incredibly validating. For areas where I need more support, this gave a good foundation of what to focus on and for areas where I'm stronger, it was great to get the sense of confidence that maybe I do actually know what I'm doing!"
"I think most of all it has boosted my confidence and helped with my imposter syndrome, it has validated some of the experiences I have had already and given me the confidence to know I can handle what is to come. It has been useful to hear from others and have peer-to-peer learning. Love the strong framework."
"I feel more confident about my ability to become a great COO, and that I would enjoy the role!"
"It's given me some very useful tools, confidence and a better self awareness of my strengths and weaknesses!"
"It's been great to validate existing behaviours / practices and work I've already been doing. It's given me energy to continue to see the role of COO as a learning opportunity."
If you have any questions about the COO Course, or would like to contribute to it, please get in touch and let’s chat. You’ll find us at coo-course@operationsnation.com.
📚 11-Week course covering Operation Nation’s “Core Competencies for a Strong COO” (see below for the breakdown of topics)
We are excited to build out the course into a more modular experience; which will include 3 core elements
- 🎞️ Pre-recorded videos focusing on the principles & guidelines of the related competency
- 🎤 Guest speaker sessions featuring experienced COO guest speakers from the ON Community and beyond sharing their wisdom and war stories (see FAQs for previous speakers), and to enable deeper Q&A.
- 💬 Fortnightly cohort discussion/war-rooming sessions. This will be participant only - with a facilitator from Operations Nation.
You’ll also get
- 💡 Optional 1:1 Office Hours with the Course Facilitators at any time during the Course
- 📝 Course workbook and case studies from ON’s “Survival Guide for Startup COOs”
- 🤫 A private group where you and your cohort can keep in touch in between sessions and after the course
- 🏆 The chance to put your Operations Nation COO Course certificate on your CV and LinkedIn profile (so long as you attend 80% of the course)
