In this episode we tackle the question of: What is a COO? Our special guest is Divinia Knowles, Founder of the London COO Roundtable.  

In this episode we get her words of wisdom on the following questions:

• What is a COO? What does a COO do? 
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• What are the differences between: COO, Chief of Staff and Operations Lead?
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• Which COO is more successful, those that are promoted internally or those people who have joined externally? 
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• How do you measure the success of a COO?
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• What is your advice for COO’s struggling with their CEO?
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Speaker notes and references:

HBR article - https://hbr.org/2006/05/second-in-command-the-misunderstood-role-of-the-chief-operating-officer

Allison Pickens article - https://allisonpickens.substack.com/p/the-rise-of-the-coo-role

Generalists vs Specialists - Range: How Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World https://amzn.eu/d/5Sxi43L

Divinia Knowles article https://www.publicover.co/articles/the-coo-problem-misconceptions-and-mistakes

Divinia was COO, CFO & a director at both Mind Candy and Pact Coffee, where she also served as interim CEO.  She has held or still holds chair and board seats at too many companies to list and is occasionally an angel investor. 

Divinia re-trained as a coach in 2017 and combined it with her previous experience to become the COO Coach, working with start up/scale up COOs/CEOs to help guide them through successfully starting up, scaling up and exiting.

And in addition to all that, she is also the Founder of the London COO Roundtable, a community that brings operations professionals together to define what it means to be a highly effective startup and scale up Chief Operating Officer.

Divinia Knowles references

COO Roundtable - https://www.cooroundtable.com/

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/diviniaknowles/

Email - divinia@diviniaknowles.com