“If I could do one thing differently, I’d hire a COO earlier.”

A SaaS founder told me this recently. His company had offices in Europe and Asia, was growing steadily, and hiring more people.

But growth created a new problem: the operations and daily tasks were getting more chaotic.

At first, he thought a “Head of Operations” person type would be able to manage this — to improve coordination, manage customer delivery, and put better systems in place.

That helped. But it didn’t go far enough.

I have an example from our operations team when I was at J&J and was leading the site strategy and operational excellence.

Our Operations Managers were there to keep the daily engine running: schedules, quality issues, production planning, production flow. But the Operations Director (similar to a COO in a scale-up) was different – a strategic partner to the General Manager.

She was responsible for the operations strategy, designing and implementing new structures and challenging assumptions to help us evolve the quality and output.

This concept of different levels of responsibilities and accountabilities is the same in growing companies.

→ A Head of Operations stabilizes and drives the execution (more operational and reactive).

→ A COO helps translate the founder’s vision into the operating model, leadership rhythm, decision-making, and accountability required for the next stage of the company (more tactical and strategical).

But I will spoil this moment: If you think about hiring a COO for your scale-up, that is NOT always the right answer to manage chaos!

Because sometimes the business first needs clearer decision rights, stronger governance, or a better leadership cadence.

Or it needs a stronger Head of Operations before it needs a COO. And sometimes the challenge is simply that the company is not yet operating at a level of complexity that justifies that role.

Hiring a COO besides a financial decision is also a leadership decision.