Calling Operator with Laura Nicol

Harry Uffindell, Chief People Officer at Partly, shares his dynamic career journey from co-founding a food subscription startup to scaling teams at Airbnb. He discusses the key elements in building a lasting company culture that keeps employees excited for years. Harry recounts lessons learned from leaders at Netflix and Stripe, emphasizing focus as a superpower for operators. He also delves into angel investing basics for newcomers, providing practical advice for navigating the startup landscape.

Connecting with Alice Hehman, a "SWAT team" startup leader who’s built recruiting and operations playbooks for some of Silicon Valley’s biggest names. An under-the-radar operator, you need to know. Alice knows what it takes to scale operations across borders, from leading domestic recruitment for Facebook to moving to Sydney to build regional teams across Asia–Pacific. Following great people led her to Bret Taylor's startup Quip (a competitor to Google Docs), where she ran business operations, including the USD $750M Salesforce deal and post-merger integration into the Salesforce ecosystem. We get real on keeping your head on straight through hypergrowth and focussing on what we can control through these big business transitions. These days, she's teamed up with Molly Graham (if you haven't read Lessons on Substack, you should) at Glue Club, helping startup leaders be better—and feel better—at work. We discuss what makes a great operational leader, why "glue people" are the backbone of scaling companies and US lessons to shortcut operators in Australia and New Zealand.Find Alice Hehman:LinkedInAlice Hehman’s Northstars and Frameworks:Learners vs Guides: Building Your Leadership TeamLessons by Molly Graham The Glue Club  (Leadership Development Program)The Four Tendencies Framework by Gretchen RubinSparketype Assessment StrengthsFinder, now CliftonStrengths Operators—Ones to Watch:Molly GrahamElliot GreenwaldOther Folks Mentioned in the Episode:Andy BartonBret TaylorAshley Prince Murphy Guest ideas?Do you have an operator on speed dial who could be perfect for the show? Please share your suggestions with me via LinkedIn. A note from your host, Laura:My goal for Calling Operator is to open-source stories from startup operators across various functional areas and learn how they excel at building and scaling companies. As a Chief of Staff, I often find myself in (virtual) rooms with people facing similar challenges and reinventing the wheel. I want this podcast to open a line for operators across Australia and New Zealand to learn from fellow operators. Each episode shares personal stories, the execution behind big ideas, career-defining moments, successes, failures, and lessons. Never miss an episode:Subscribe on your favourite platform:SpotifyApple Podcasts(Other) CallingOperator.com

Today, I'm connecting with Emma Seymour, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at Deputy. Emma is no stranger to navigating big transitions—whether steering a company through acquisitions, adapting through CEO leadership changes, driving profitable growth in uncertain post-pandemic times, or achieving unicorn status. Known for her "throw the ball to me" mindset, I hope Emma's story reminds all of our female-identifying listeners of the power of stepping up before you feel ready. In today’s episode, we discuss: Her CFO leadership journey: From public practice to JobAdder to Deputy, where she became the youngest female CFO of an Australian tech unicornEmma’s reflections on becoming a first-time mum while managing a "big job"Deputy's rise to profitability and unicorn status (for market context, Deputy is the 15th Australian-founded tech company to achieve this milestone)How Deputy’s 80% female leadership team drives business outcomes, enriches company culture, and brings them closer to the customerClocking in every day to help customers build a better world for shift workersWhy you should always "throw the ball to me"Alternative strategies for raising capital at different stages of growthWhat’s next for the future of the CFO role in tech.Find Emma Seymour:LinkedInDeputyEmma Seymour is just short of her third successful year as CFO of Deputy (read more)Emma Seymour’s Northstars and Frameworks:Goal setting: Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)ANZ Operators—Ones to Watch:Mel Perkins (CEO and Co-founder at Canva)Other Folks Mentioned in the Episode:Silvija Martincevic (CEO at Deputy) Guest ideas?Do you have an operator on speed dial who could be perfect for the show? Please share your suggestions with me via LinkedIn. A note from your host, Laura:My goal for Calling Operator is to open-source stories from startup operators across various functional areas and learn how they excel at building and scaling companies. As a Chief of Staff, I often find myself in (virtual) rooms with people facing similar challenges and reinventing the wheel. I want this podcast to open a line for operators across Australia and New Zealand to learn from fellow operators. Each episode shares personal stories, the execution behind big ideas, career-defining moments, successes, failures, and lessons. Never miss an episode:Subscribe on your favourite platform:SpotifyApple Podcasts(Other) CallingOperator.com

Today, I'm connecting with Annie Liao, founder and CEO of Build Club. What began as a weekend AI project among friends has now evolved into APAC’s largest AI learning platform. Fresh off closing her pre-seed round and going all-in on Build Club, Annie shares what’s next for her and her team. In today’s episode, we discuss: Annie’s early career journey as a data scientist, consultant, venture capitalist, community builder, operator, and startup founder—and the lessons she gained from each transition; A nod to her recent crowning as a Forbes Australia 30 Under 30 honoree; Scaling the impact of why Build Club started: to empower everyone to build their dreams into reality; Build Club’s internal AI strategy and approach to building; Why providing clarity is the most valuable role a founder can play; Taking a leap of faith to build custom GPTs (a beginner's guide); How to upskill your workforce in AI; The rise of AI workforce manager roles—plus why operators are uniquely suited for this shift. And, of course, I ask the “stupid” questions to help us all accelerate our AI learning journey.Find Annie Liao:LinkedInXArtBuild Club eventsJoin Build Club’s waitlist: www.buildclub.aiAnnie Liao’s Northstars and Frameworks:The Build Club Story and Why We Raised Venture Capital FundingThis 23-year-old banked $1.2 million to build the ‘Duolingo for AI learning’Goal setting: Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)ANZ Operators—Ones to Watch:Mitchell Hughes (Co-founder at NextGen Ventures)Clinton Lui (Build Club)Other Folks Mentioned in the Episode:Julia Wells (Lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney)Daniel Vassilev (Co-founder at Relevance AI)Jacky Koh (Co-founder at Relevance AI)Tom McKenzie (CTO at Build Club)Jessy Wu (Founder at Encour) Guest ideas?Do you have an operator on speed dial who could be perfect for the show? Please share your suggestions with me via LinkedIn. A note from your host, Laura:My goal for Calling Operator is to open-source stories from startup operators across various functional areas and learn how they excel at building and scaling companies. As a Chief of Staff, I often find myself in (virtual) rooms with people facing similar challenges and reinventing the wheel. I want this podcast to open a line for operators across Australia and New Zealand to learn from fellow operators. Each episode shares personal stories, the execution behind big ideas, career-defining moments, successes, failures, and lessons. Never miss an episode:Subscribe on your favourite platform:SpotifyApple Podcasts(Other) CallingOperator.com

Today, I'm connecting with Deena Metz, Head of Customer Success at Flagship. For Deena, being at the nexus of a company is where she thrives, so she’s placed herself at the heart of an early-stage startup: customer success (CS). She’s one of 12 employees, building alongside Simon Molnar to establish Flagship as the backbone of retail operations in Australia, the US, and beyond. In today’s episode, we discuss: Deena’s childhood dream of playing soccer for the Matildas; How an internship in New York launched her career in digital health at ANDHealth+ and Perx Health; Joining Flagship as the first female on the team, and her approach to building the company's post-sales function and customer experience; Why CS is a team sport, and how sales, post-sales, and product teams need to be “Batman to each other’s Batman”; Partnering with retail brands to raise the bar in visual merchandising and bring more data to brick-and-mortar stores; And the refreshing reminder: “we’re not saving lives”. Find Deena Metz:LinkedInFlagshipDeena Metz’s Northstars and Frameworks:Gabriel Baker (Co-Founder at Mosh)Rachel Kelly (Ex-EVP, APAC and Global Instore at Afterpay)Steph Leathers (Managing Director ANZ at GHD)Alex Brogan, Faster Than Normal NewsletterWes Kao's NewsletterAtlas (Zendesk alternative for customer support)ANZ Operators—Ones to Watch:Zoe Champtaloup (Director of Operations and General Counsel at Perx Health)Jackie Rotman (Director, Strategy at OakNorth)Other Folks Mentioned in the Episode:Simon Molnar (founder at Flagship)Scott Taylor (Co-founder and CEO at Perx Health)Hugo Rourke (Co-founder and COO at Perx Health)Marcel Ninio (Retail Innovation and Partnerships at Flagship) Guest ideas?Do you have an operator on speed dial who could be perfect for the show? Please share your suggestions with me via LinkedIn. A note from your host, Laura:My goal for Calling Operator is to open-source stories from startup operators across various functional areas and learn how they excel at building and scaling companies. As a Chief of Staff, I often find myself in (virtual) rooms with people facing similar challenges and reinventing the wheel. I want this podcast to open a line for operators across Australia and New Zealand to learn from fellow operators. Each episode shares personal stories, the execution behind big ideas, career-defining moments, successes, failures, and lessons. Never miss an episode:Subscribe on your favourite platform:SpotifyApple Podcasts(Other) CallingOperator.com

Today, I'm connecting with Jackie Rabec, Product Manager at Google. Jackie’s product leadership story is all about transitions—from corners of the globe to non-linear career paths and reframing impact beyond just our work. In our conversation, we discuss: The importance of “doing your homework”; Growing up in South Africa and following her mother’s path into medicine; Definitive decision-making versus directional decision-making and how it guided her transition from medicine to tech and product; Visualising your career as a pond of lily pads; Her journey from being the first PM at Heidi Health to a non-health tech product role at Google; Moving from the balcony to the dance floor and back again as a product leader; Lessons from transitioning from a 40-person startup to a global corporation; How to avoid overcomplicating product by indexing on three things; Her vision to improve healthcare access and delivery in low-income countries and under-resourced communities in countries like Africa. Find Dr Jackie Rabec:LinkedInDr Jackie’s Northstars and Frameworks:The Balcony and the Dance FloorLenny’s podcastTim FerrissKirsten Mann (Chief Product Officer at Prospection)Peter Cronin (Founder and Director at Prospection)Paul Redfern (Chief Product Officer at Big Picture Medical)Dr. Thomas Kelly (CEO and Co-Founder at Heidi Health)Waleed Mussa (CFO and Co-Founder at Heidi Health)Yu Liu (CTO and Co-Founder at Heidi Health)Trung Ton (Partner at Foundry Health)ANZ Operators—Ones to Watch:So good we named him twice: Paul Redfern (Chief Product Officer at Big Picture Medical)Eliza Hillary (Senior UX Designer at RACV) Guest ideas?Do you have an operator on speed dial who could be perfect for the show? Please share your suggestions with me via LinkedIn. A note from your host, Laura:My goal for Calling Operator is to open-source stories from startup operators across various functional areas and learn how they excel at building and scaling companies. As a Chief of Staff, I often find myself in (virtual) rooms with people facing similar challenges and reinventing the wheel. I want this podcast to open a line for operators across Australia and New Zealand to learn from fellow operators. Each episode shares personal stories, the execution behind big ideas, career-defining moments, successes, failures, and lessons. Never miss an episode:Subscribe on your favourite platform:SpotifyApple Podcasts(Other) CallingOperator.com

I'm connecting with George Hatzis, a fractional product designer for early-stage startup teams. From his early curiosity about design and product at Ignition to redesigning a personal loan application admin at Wisr and building and scaling a multi-brand design system for healthcare products at Eucalyptus, he's no stranger to the twists and turns of startups and scale-ups. In this episode, we cover practical design and MVP design systems—what they are and how to apply them in fast-moving, scrappy environments; taking the independent product design route and his “Mary Poppins-style” approach to fractional work; his journey (so far) building a migration tech product alongside Niamh and Damian at Matilda; leading design teams and making a conscious transition from an individual contributor to a manager; AI as a “companion piece” for designers; the right time for startups to bring in their first product designer; and advice for product designers pitching themselves to early-stage startups. Plus, slowing everything down for life's simple moments, watching 100 movies a year (and reviewing them on Letterboxd), and the magic of acknowledging trade-offs.Find George Hatzis:LinkedInPortfolioLetterboxd: film reviews by George HatzisChecklist Design: a side project by George HatzisGeorge’s Northstar People and Principles :James Nau (VP of Product at Airtasker)Olivia King (Independent Creative Director)Olivia King’s portfolio[Op-ed] AI as a trend and how designers can work with it (written by Sebastiaan de With)ANZ Operators—Ones to Watch:Kayla Medica (Fractional Product Marketer/CMO)Mehdeeka by Kayla Medica (a weekly Substack newsletter covering various areas of B2B and SaaS marketing aimed at small teams)Nick Hough (Director of Product at Jasper)Other Folks Mentioned in the Episode:Guy Pearson (CEO at Ignition)Dane Thomas (Co-founder & Chief Product Officer at Ignition)Niamh Mooney (Co-founder at Matilda)Damian Png (Co-founder at Matilda) Guest ideas?Do you have an operator on speed dial who could be perfect for the show? Please share your suggestions with me via LinkedIn. A note from your host, Laura:My goal for Calling Operator is to open-source stories from startup operators across various functional areas and learn how they excel at building and scaling companies. As a Chief of Staff, I often find myself in (virtual) rooms with people facing similar challenges and reinventing the wheel. I want this podcast to open a line for operators across Australia and New Zealand to learn from fellow operators. Each episode shares personal stories, the execution behind big ideas, career-defining moments, successes, failures, and lessons. Never miss an episode:Subscribe on your favourite platform:SpotifyApple Podcasts(Other) CallingOperator.com

Today, I'm connecting with Maxine Minter, executive coach, founder of Co Lab, and General Partner of Co Ventures. Coaching and mentoring leapfrogging someone’s career trajectory has been a key theme percolating our recent episodes, SO… recognising that having a coach is a privilege and perhaps more uncommon at the operator level in the ANZ ecosystem; this is a SPECIAL EPISODE to help open source some tips and tricks. For context, executive coaching helps you close the gap between where you are now and where you want to be as a leader. In this episode, Laura talks to Maxine Minter about her work coaching founders, CEOs, and COOs and how to become an exceptional, high-impact, high-performing startup operator. You’ll walk away as the CEO of your career with many tactical tools and exercises to help you run high-performing teams (or influence up, down and sideways).Find Maxine Minter on:LinkedInTwitterMaxine's Northstars:The Johari Window Model (a framework for understanding conscious and unconscious bias that can help increase self-awareness and our understanding of others. It is the creation of two psychologists, Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham)Emotional by Leonard Mlodinow (advances in psychology and neuroscience have proven that emotions are as critical to our well being as thinking)How to Find an Executive Coach:Co Lab  (At Co Lab, we work with world-class operational and leadership coaches who have all previously been in c-suite roles at fast-growth companies, venture partners at leading VCs or academics at the world’s best universities, or a combination of all three. To find the right match, we start by working with you to develop your goals and create a profile to match you with suitable coaches based on your goals. The matching process is free for the clients going through it.)Disclaimer: Laura and Maxine work at Co Lab Guest ideas?Do you have an operator on speed dial who could be perfect for the show? Please share your suggestions with me via LinkedIn. A note from your host, Laura:My goal for Calling Operator is to open-source stories from startup operators across various functional areas and learn how they excel at building and scaling companies. As a Chief of Staff, I often find myself in (virtual) rooms with people facing similar challenges and reinventing the wheel. I want this podcast to open a line for operators across Australia and New Zealand to learn from fellow operators. Each episode shares personal stories, the execution behind big ideas, career-defining moments, successes, failures, and lessons. Never miss an episode:Subscribe on your favourite platform:SpotifyApple Podcasts(Other) CallingOperator.com

Today, I'm connecting with Taylor Fox-Smith, Head of Community Partnerships at Airwallex. In this episode, we explore Taylor's formative years and Montessori education and dive into her latest project: building the community function at fintech unicorn Airwallex, a cross-border payments company. We also unpack her lessons from scaling channel partnerships across various stages and verticals (PropTech and ClimateTech), her journey of finding a deep sense of self amidst the ebbs and flows of startups, and her mission to become a growth enzyme for founders.Find Taylor Fox-Smith on:LinkedInTaylor’s Northstar:Her Dad, Gavin Fox-SmithANZ Operators—Ones to Watch:Emily Casey, Founder & Director  at What the HealthAnnie Liao, Chief of Staff at Relevance AI and Founder of Build ClubOther Folks Mentioned in the Episode:Jethro Cohen (Investor at Square Peg)    Ben Hanley (Product at Trace)Mina Radhakrishnan (Co-Founder/ex-CEO at :Different)Andrew (Soro) Sorokovsky (VP Sales/BD @ Immutable)Elizabeth Broderick (Founder and Convenor at Champions of Change Coalition) Guest ideas?Do you have an operator on speed dial who could be perfect for the show? Please share your suggestions with me via LinkedIn. A note from your host, Laura:My goal for Calling Operator is to open-source stories from startup operators across various functional areas and learn how they excel at building and scaling companies. As a Chief of Staff, I often find myself in (virtual) rooms with people facing similar challenges and reinventing the wheel. I want this podcast to open a line for operators across Australia and New Zealand to learn from fellow operators. Each episode shares personal stories, the execution behind big ideas, career-defining moments, successes, failures, and lessons. Never miss an episode:Subscribe on your favourite platform:SpotifyApple Podcasts(Other) CallingOperator.com

Emily's an incredible people and operations leader who is passionate about doing things differently. Her latest project is Kic, a fitness app quashing diet culture—founded by Laura Henshaw and Steph Claire Smith. In this episode, we explore her journey from corporate to startup land; leading inside a unicorn to a bootstrapped company with year-on-year growth. There were so many, but highlights include: Balancing anxiety and mental health around leadership and the techniques that have defined Emily. Scaling from employee #90 at Linktree to leading a 20-person people and culture team through rapid growth. Reshaping Kic's strategy from product-led to a community and content-led fitness empire. Why community-led brands will win and how to embed a community-first mindset into your company planning. How mentors and coaches can 10x your personal and career growth.Find Emily Robinson on:LinkedInEmily’s Northstars and frameworks:Jane MartinoThe Four AgreementsYou Can Heal Your LifeANZ operators—ones to watch:Maxine Minter, General Partner at Co Ventures, Founder and Advisor at Co LabMikayla Hopkins, Head of Marketing at TracksuitOther folks mentioned in the episode:Laura Henshaw (CEO and co-founder at Kic)Steph Claire Smith (Chief Community Officer and co-founder at Kic)Isa Notermans (Chief People Officer)Anth Zaccaria (Co-founder of Linktree)Alex Zaccaria (CEO and co-founder of Linktree)Jessica Trumble (CEO & Founder at We Are Charlotte)Michael Stocks (Head of Marketing, Asia Pacific at Squarespace)Do I want Kids? Miniseries with Laura HenshawCo Lab (Matching high-growth founders with executive coaches)Simon Sinek Guest ideas?Do you have an operator on speed dial who could be perfect for the show? Please share your suggestions with me via LinkedIn. A note from your host, Laura:My goal for Calling Operator is to open-source stories from startup operators across various functional areas and learn how they excel at building and scaling companies. As a Chief of Staff, I often find myself in (virtual) rooms with people facing similar challenges and reinventing the wheel. I want this podcast to open a line for operators across Australia and New Zealand to learn from fellow operators. Each episode shares personal stories, the execution behind big ideas, career-defining moments, successes, failures, and lessons. Never miss an episode:Subscribe on your favourite platform:SpotifyApple Podcasts(Other) CallingOperator.com