COO

Also known as: Chief Operating Officer, VP Operations, Head of Operations, President & COO.

What does a COO do?

A COO is the executive responsible for making the company work day to day: processes, planning, function budgets and delivery against plans. In a tech company the COO turns the CEO's strategy into goals, teams and metrics and makes sure they are met. The scope differs a lot: in one company the COO runs everything except product and engineering, in another only operations and support.

• turns the annual strategy into plans and metrics for every function;
• builds operating processes: planning, reporting, a regular management rhythm;
• runs the functions handed over to them: support, customer success, sales operations, project delivery;
• finds the bottlenecks that block growth and reshapes teams for the next scale;
• takes operational questions off the CEO's plate so the CEO can focus on strategy, investors and product.

When does a company need a COO?

A company needs a COO when it has grown to the point where the CEO is drowning in operations and no longer has time for strategy. This usually happens after a large round, rapid team growth or entry into new markets, when processes that worked for a small team start to break. A common trigger is a founder who is strong in product or sales and neither wants nor knows how to build a management system. Another scenario is a COO as a future CEO, being prepared to take over. The role will not work if the CEO is not ready to hand over real authority: then it is better to hire a Chief of Staff to take load off the CEO's agenda, or to strengthen individual functions with strong leaders.

COO vs Chief of Staff: what's the difference?

A COO runs functions, teams and a budget directly, while a Chief of Staff works through the CEO's agenda and decisions. A Chief of Staff prepares meetings, tracks decisions and closes the CEO's projects, but usually does not lead a large team. The CFO owns money, reporting and investors; the COO owns how the business runs.

COO vs related roles: comparison

Why is it hard to hire a COO?

Hiring a COO is hard because the role has no fixed content: companies look for very different people under the same title.

• In one company the COO owns sales and support, in another production and logistics, in a third almost everything except product. Candidates' experience is just as varied.
• A strong operations manager is not automatically a COO: the role needs the scale and authority of a second person in the company.
• A COO's success depends heavily on the pairing with the CEO, and fit cannot be seen in a CV.
• Candidates are cautious: experienced COOs know the role often ends in conflict with the founder, and ask a lot about authority before the first interview.

What to decide before hiring a COO?

• Which functions will report to the COO, and which stay with the CEO? Without a clear line, the COO and the CEO end up making the same decisions.
• Is the job to scale what works or to fix what is broken? These are different profiles, and a candidate strong in one is often weak in the other.
• Is the COO a future CEO or a long-term partner to the founder? The answer decides which candidates to approach and what to promise in the offer.
• Which metrics will the COO own in the first year? Without metrics, after six months nobody can tell whether the COO is working.

Where to find a COO?

COOs usually come from companies with a similar model and stage: sitting COOs and heads of business units, leaders who scaled operations in fast-growing tech companies, marketplaces and fintech, and former consultants who moved into operating roles. A strong profile signal is having gone through a doubling of team or revenue with a company and being able to show which processes they built on the way. NEWHR searches for these candidates by the results of their work, not by applications to a job post.

How to assess a COO in an interview?

A COO is assessed through a walkthrough of the operations they built and an operational case on your company. The walkthrough covers team size and structure, metrics before and after, and what broke along the way; the case covers where your bottleneck is and what they would do in the first 90 days. A working session with the CEO is essential, since this pair has to work together, followed by references.

Strong signals:

• describes processes through the metrics they changed;
• in the case, asks for numbers and team structure before proposing solutions;
• talks calmly about disagreements with a previous CEO and how they were resolved.

Red flags:

• describes their role as "responsible for everything", with no specific functions or metrics;
• proposes rebuilding everything from day one without finding out what works;
• asks no questions about authority or what the CEO will keep.

How long does it take to hire a COO?

We present the first candidates for the COO role within 5–7 days of the brief. The whole search usually takes one to six months; with a COO, agreeing on the profile takes longest, because the role changes so much from company to company.

Related roles

• CEO — decides where the company is going; the COO makes sure it gets there.
• CFO — owns money and reporting, not how processes work.
• CBDO — grows the business through partnerships and new lines, not through operations.
• CTPO — runs product and engineering, which usually stay outside the COO's remit.