CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER

Set the foundations: understand the structure, assignments, and final project, choose your company, and get placed into working groups so you can focus on doing the work, not figuring out the rules.

• Instructor inro 
• Course structure 
• Assignments & final project overview
• How to succeed in this course

Get clear on what a modern COO does and why the role looks different in every company. You’ll learn the main COO archetypes, where the role sits in the C-suite, and how strategy, scale, and the CEO partnership shape day-to-day operating leadership.

• Evolution of the COO role: Traditional vs. modern COO
• CAO & CoS
• Where the COO sits in the C-suite
• COO archetypes: Executor, Change Agent, Integrator, Mentor, Partner to CEO
• Case Study + Workshop: COO role analysis

Turn strategy into something that works. In this class, you’ll translate big-picture strategy into a clear Target Operating Model, spot the risks hiding in operations, tech, people, and data, and learn how COOs pressure-test it all before things break.

• What is a Target Operating Model (TOM)?
• How strategy translates into operating capabilities
• Strategic risk identification: Operational, regulatory, people, data, tech, financial
• How COOs pressure-test strategy

Get clear on what a COO owns. You’ll be able to define a practical COO service catalogue and turn it into realistic operating plans — stress-tested across best, worst, and most-likely scenarios — using a refined Target Operating Model.

• What a COO Service Catalogue is & why it matters
• Scenario thinking: Best case, worst case, expected case
• Operational plans: Annual, quarterly, resources planning
• Workshop: TOM Development

Assignment #1: Define the Operating Model and Draft a Preliminary Service Catalogue for your selected company. Identify two potential operational challenges that could affect your service catalogue and draft a risk mitigation plan for these challenges.

Understand how to cut through metric noise and pick KPIs that matter to senior leaders. You’ll design executive-ready dashboards tailored to ops, people, finance, and risk, and confidently explain why those numbers belong in front of the board.

• The COO’s performance measurement system
• Designing dashboards & different types of dashboards 
• KPIs, OKRs, & success metrics: Choosing the right metrics
• Communicating with the board
• Case Studies: How great companies report performance: Google, Amazon, Netflix
• Workshop: Choosing the right KPIs

Assignment #2: Create a KPI dashboard for your selected company. Who is it for? 

Turn operational plans into clear, actionable budgets. Learn to navigate COO–CFO priorities, decode cost drivers, and structure forecasts that make sense. Then, put it all into practice in a hands-on budgeting workshop.

• Budget cycles: Annual, rolling, zero-based, flexible
• Key COO–CFO dynamics
• Translating operating needs into financial forecasts
• Understanding cost drivers in operational teams
• Capex vs. Opex considerations
• Workshop: Creating a budget

Take control of the numbers that drive your projects. Learn to break down budgets, run ROI scenarios, and make financial decisions with confidence — all hands-on with your own run-rate model.

• Knowing the components: People, technology, real estate, run-rates
• How to partner with the CFO
• ROI decision models
• Financial scenario planning
• Workshop: Run-Rate Model

Assignment #3: Develop a High-Level Ops Budget for your chosen company.

Learn to stretch your team and budget smartly, whether growth is booming or costs are tight. You’ll get frameworks for headcount planning, risk-based allocation, and scenario-driven staffing, then put them to work in a hands-on workshop that optimises resources and automation opportunities.

• Risk-based resource allocation
• Process-level budgeting
• Headcount planning frameworks
• Scenario planning: High growth vs. cost-cutting years
• Staffing models: Centralised, decentralised, hybrid
• Workshop: Resource allocation

Get inside a COO’s head: see how they set up governance, manage risk, and keep the organisation running smoothly. Understand the structures, decisions, and checks that make companies resilient and compliant.

• What governance looks like for a COO
• Risk taxonomy: Operational, financial, people, regulatory, technology
• Governance structures: Committees, decision rights, reporting lines
• The COO’s role in ensuring compliance & resilience

Learn how to design and document functional operational controls. By building a controls library and mapping key processes, you’ll practice mitigating risks like a pro, hands-on and in class.

• What are “controls” in operations?
• Control families: Financial controls, operational controls, people-related controls
• Building a controls library
• Workshop: Controls library

Take a close look under the hood of operational controls and see what works. You’ll learn to spot weak points, evaluate effectiveness based on company stage, and make recommendations that keep operations resilient and risk in check. 

• “Good” operational control & different stage companies
• Early-warning indicators
• Continuous monitoring vs. periodic reviews
• Linking controls to risk appetite
• COOs as owners of operational resilience
• Workshop: Control effectiveness evaluation

Learn how to run an RCSA, spot systemic issues before they escalate to rank and tackle them effectively. By the end, you’ll know how to turn risk insight into clear, actionable priorities across any service.

• How to run an RCSA 
• Facilitating cross-functional reviews
• Detecting systemic risk & failures
• How to prioritise remediation actions
• Workshop: Risk assessment

Assignment #4: Build a Risk & Control Matrix (RACM) for your chosen company for 1–2 critical processes.

See how COOs drive performance by shaping culture, setting rituals, and keeping teams accountable. You’ll learn to spot toxic patterns, leverage feedback, and understand why a strong culture can make or break strategy.

• The COO’s role in shaping culture
• Culture levers: Feedback, rituals, communication, accountability
• Diagnosing toxic or broken cultures
• Culture’s impact on performance & customer experience

Assignment #5: Read the Peter Drucker article + watch the Simon Sinek video and reflect.

Build org structures that scale. From 50 to 5,000 employees, learn how to design teams, choose the right locations, and set up a workforce strategy that balances efficiency, flexibility, and growth.

• Organisation design principles
• Org structures appropriate for different stages
• Scaling from 50 → 500 → 5,000 employees
• Location & workforce strategy: Remote, hybrid, offshore, etc.

Assignment #6: Design a high-level organisational structure for your company. Make location strategy decisions that reduce cost and improve execution.