Calling Operator with Laura Nicol

After 19 conversations with some of the sharpest operators around, I’m closing the year ** with someone who rewired how I think about building process: Laura Warden .  Your job as an operator is to make things work. So you do. You patch. You duct-tape. You make something 10% better, then 15%, then 20%. Over time, you get excellent at optimising a system that (maybe) shouldn’t exist in the first pl...

Every great founder has a small Avengers team turning vision into operational reality. This episode shines a light on someone running marketing, customer and revenue operations while acting as the CEO’s trusted right-hand. Inside: 15+ years' CRM, ops, and scaling insights from a multi-functional perspective—from Sonar6 (acquired by Cornerstone), AskNicely, Plexure (formerly VMob) and Joyous Leavin...

Laura Nicol dials into Anna Prell , VP Operations at Ivo . Anna reminds us why being an operator is a) so damn exciting and b) the ultimate leadership testing ground:  "In a startup, you can be your own version of a founder. You’re the founder of whatever it is you’re in charge of. You keep testing, learning, and scaling until it works."  Inside this conversation: Moving to the US in 2020—and oper...

Laura Nicol dials into Mahesh Muralidhar . From day one, Mahesh has been obsessed with making a difference. He was early in Sydney’s startup scene in the 2010s post-MBA—first chasing his own idea, then finding impact (and peace) in helping others build. What followed? A career that reads like three lifetimes in one. Inside: The romantic, messy-beautiful beginnings of Sydney’s startup scene. That n...

Laura Nicol dials into Savannah Black. For Savannah, being a startup operator is about making the company work in the real world. All the forward planning, mission, and vision stuff is important. That’s the on-paper part. But being an operator is about making it actually work. You can see it in action at Crypto Tax Calculator: four roles, three promotions, each adding new layers of context. Today,...

Laura Nicol dials into Alexey Mitko . Alexey’s career has been all about operational leadership. Finance, HR, legal — he’s held the keys to the gritty, foundational work that lets startups scale without falling apart. He puts it simply: “When the startup community has been so generous in teaching me how to see the world differently as a 20-something, it’s my obligation — as an almost 40-year-old (...

Laura Nicol dials into Phoebe Pincus, COO at Startmate and Co-Founder at Cheeky Run Club . We cover a lot. Learning to lead when you've never had female leadership role models. Being the opposite of a perfectionist. Her career journey from psychology student to general manager to chief of staff to COO. We also get into starting Cheeky Run Club, balancing passion projects with big jobs, and finding...

Laura Nicol  dials into Emer McCann , Head of People & Chief of Staff at Simply Wall St. Emer scaled Deputy’s people and culture through hypergrowth (70 to 350 employees) before joining Simply Wall St as employee #15 to build from zero. She’s the quiet force behind the chaos. The puppeteer, the glue, the phrasebook for hard conversations. Inside this conversation: Irishness, “Notions” and confiden...

Laura Nicol connects with Liani Strauss , Chief of Staff at Tracksuit. Liani’s background in industrial engineering gave her structure. Startups gave her speed. Today, she works at the intersection of strategy, systems, and people—helping shape how Tracksuit scales from the inside out. Inside the conversation: Early days of BizOps at Tracksuit: “We were the bridge—setting up scaffolding for new fu...

Laura Nicol connects with Paul Redfern , Chief Operating Officer at Big Picture Medical. He’s someone who’s spent most of his career toggling between product and operations, and getting pretty good at living in the grey. And becoming “reasonably okay-ish” in a whole bunch of different worlds. This episode is all about a tension every operator knows too well: the never-ending juggle between growth...

Laura Nicol connects with today's co-host: the wonderful Gaby Howard , Head of Growth and Operations at Carted . Gaby’s no stranger to the podcast—she first appeared on Ep 23. Gaby Howard on Navigating the Shift from Founder to Operator in Tech: Insights from Carted and Flaunter, where the wonderful Paloma interviewed her about her journey from founder to operator. (If you’re here for her backstor...

Today, I’m turning the mic inward for my first-ever solo episode of Calling Operator . I’m Laura Nicol , your host and Chief of Staff at Co Ventures—and in this conversation, we’re talking burnout. The kind that creeps up. The kind that hits hard. The kind that startup operators know all too well. It comes up on the pod all the time—for a reason.  I'm calling it my #buildinpublic reflection on thi...

Laura Nicol connects with Anitta Krishan , Chief Culture Officer at Hoogly AI . We begin with a breath—a literal nervous system–balancing pause—followed by people-first perspectives from a former Trivago, Grab, and TikTok executive now shaping the future of work through an AI-powered Culture OS. Inside the episode: Operating mindfully: breathing, sleeping, deep sighing, and listening to your body’...

Today, I'm connecting with Karan Anand, Chief Strategy Officer & Managing Director, Australia at Hnry. We trace his journey from 13 years in consulting to becoming Hnry’s first hire in Australia, exploring what it really means to lead without ego, think in systems, and be a force multiplier for founders. Inside the episode: His experience as a new dad Building generational community projects, incl...

**Join us at our first-ever podcast meetup in Sydney. Info below ** Today, I'm connecting with Sophie Mckay, Head of Marketing, Asia Pacific and Japan at Notion.  Sophie’s career has been all about scaling tech brands across the Asia-Pacific region (APAC). Before joining Notion six months ago, she spent almost a decade at Qualtrics —starting as the first marketing hire in APAC and growing the team...

**Join us at our first-ever podcast meetup in Sydney. Info below ** Today, I'm connecting with Olivia (Liv) Panzic, Head of Marketing Communications at TikTok ANZ. A core part of Liv’s belief system? Look after people. And it shows. Her colleagues and mentors describe her leadership at TikTok as “people-centric,” “human-first,” and “transformative for those around her.” This conversation covers th...

Today, I'm connecting with Rach Matters, Senior Program Manager at Linktree. Rach’s sweet spot is joining fast-growing organizations with a blank job description, and she’s had the privilege of learning company building through EA-exec partnerships with Linktree’s Alex Zaccaria and seasoned entrepreneur Janey Martino. In this episode, we cover: Why worrying is like a rocking chair—it keeps you bus...

Today, I'm connecting with Shipra Mahindra, Principal Product Manager at Octopus Deploy. Let’s just say—Shipra’s peers can’t stop raving about her. She made her mark as the first product manager at Canva, working closely with co-founder Mel Perkins and the early mobile team. Shipra takes us through the highs, lows, and many celebrations that came with launching and scaling Canva’s first mobile app...

Today, I'm connecting with Harry Uffindell, Chief People Officer at Partly. Harry’s worn just about every startup hat—founder, growth, bizops, revops, people, culture—you name it. But he ultimately found his calling in the people space. Now, he’s scaling Partly, hiring the world’s top 1% talent, and building a culture where people stay excited about their work a decade in. In today’s episode, we d...

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 h...

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 fema...

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 capit...

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,...

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 ve...

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...