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TOP OF THE OPS

True conversations about what happens behind the scenes

Two ex-VCs turned Operators. One podcast. Zero filter.

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About the Show

The work everyone relies on, nobody fully sees.

The podcast from operators, for operators. Each episode dives into the messy, fascinating, unglamorous reality of running the show from behind the scenes.

From managing up to managing chaos, from strategic planning to putting out fires, Top of the Ops brings you the conversations that actually happen behind closed doors.

Whether you're in ops, strategy, or any role where you're the invisible infrastructure keeping an organisation running, this is for you.

Latest Episodes

Episodes

06
Guest Episode
Clara Ma, from Hugging Face CoS to Ask a Chief of Staff Founder. Are Chiefs of Agents the New Chiefs of Staff?
Clara Ma, founder of Ask a Chief of Staff and Hugging Face's first CoS, on the rise of the "Chief of Agents", why the role can't be automated away, and her 30-60-90 day playbook for any new CoS.
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05
Co-host Episode
WTF does a Chief of Staff actually do? Our day by day schedules
Two Chiefs of Staff swap weekly calendars. Daily CEO syncs vs weekly ones, IC days vs manager days, 180-page board decks vs one-page agendas. Same title, two genuinely different jobs.
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04
Guest Episode
Do You Really Need a Chief of Staff and How Much Should You Pay Them?
Gaby of Robin on diagnosing what kind of right hand a founder actually needs, the real difference between a Chief of Staff and a Founder's Associate, and what fair pay looks like at Series B in London.
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03
Co-host Episode
Will Chiefs of Staff survive the age of AI?
Two operators on the automations they've already built, and why the best Chiefs of Staff are about to become 10x more valuable.
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02
Guest Episode
Alejandra Otero: First Principles and Operational Excellence at ElevenLabs
Chief of Staff at ElevenLabs on the Barcelona dinner that changed everything, building a rocket ship at $330M ARR, and why first principles thinking is the job.
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01
Co-host Episode
From the Board to the Trenches
Two ex-VCs on why they left the boardroom behind, and what nobody tells you about becoming an operator.
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Meet Your Hosts

Two ex-VCs turned Operators.
Zero filter.

Cecilia Manduca
Cecilia Manduca
Co-Host

From VC at Talis Capital to Chief of Staff at Seqera and FD at PortalOne. Cecilia brings the operational lens: how to build systems that actually scale, and the real talk about what happens when they don't.

Beatrice Aliprandi
Beatrice Aliprandi
Co-Host

From VC at Lakestar to Chief of Staff at Praktika. Beatrice is the strategic operator who's lived every messy chapter of the ops journey, and isn't afraid to talk about it.

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