Re-Inventing Yourself as COO

Nathan Bennett & Stephane A. Miles

We focus on factors that have fundamentally changed demands on COOs:

global recession, the evolving paradigm surrounding governance, threats to operations from natural disasters and terrorism, and the rise of big data. Each requires COOs to develop new competencies, to think about risk, and to become increasingly agile as a leader.

Over the last ten years, leadership teams have found themselves facing many unusual and some unprecedented challenges. These challenges are, because of their nature and because of the way organisations were exposed, particularly influential in reshaping the work of the COO. In this article, we focus on four major factors that have fundamentally changed demands on the COO: the global recession, the evolving paradigm surrounding governance, the threats to operations posed by natural disasters and terrorism, and the rise of big data. Each factor is significant, undeniable, and unavoidable for companies, regardless of geography, industry, or market position. And more importantly, each factor requires COOs to develop and demonstrate new competencies, to think differently about risk, and to become increasingly quick and agile in order to satisfy the needs of the position’s many stakeholders and to effectively lead.

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