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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.

11Episodes
02Ex-VC Hosts
00Filter

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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.

Chief of Staff Startup Operations Strategy AI & Automation VC → Operator Managing Up Scaling
This Week's Rundown

The Chart

Newest first — ▲ new entry at the top
New here? Start with EP 05 — WTF does a Chief of Staff actually do?
11
Cecilia ManducaBeatrice Aliprandi
Co-host Episode
Our Ride or Die AI Workflows
The season one bonus. Two operators, zero engineering background, one bot army. Every automation Ceci and Bea actually run: the finance operating system, the invoice fairy, the mean meeting coach, and the stack that produces this podcast.
10
Guest Episode
Inside Sana's $1.1B Exit: The Operating Principles That Made It
Olivia Elf joined Sana at 20 people and rode it to a $1.1B Workday acquisition. The operating principles that built it: giving away your Legos, Sanyans have no toes, fully uncapped roles, fractionally beautiful.
09
Cecilia ManducaBeatrice Aliprandi
Co-host Episode
Is Chief of Staff a Dead End or a Launching Pad? Life After Chief of Staff
The season finale. Two thirds of Chiefs of Staff get promoted, but the average tenure is two years. Ceci and Bea map every realistic exit from the role, finance, COO, founder, VC, chief of automation, and admit it has an expiration date.
08
Megan Standing
Guest Episode
Why I Left ElevenLabs to Be Employee #1 at an AI Startup
Megan Standing scaled ElevenLabs from 30 to over 300 people in 18 months, then left to be employee #1 and Chief of Staff at Solve AI. Holding the hiring bar in hypergrowth, why the first hire was ops not engineering, and what a decade in talent gives a Chief of Staff.
07
Cecilia ManducaBeatrice Aliprandi
Co-host Episode
8 Ways the Chief of Staff Role Fails (And How to Fix It)
Two Chiefs of Staff name the eight ways the role quietly goes wrong, from never letting go of execution to invisible work, with the honest fix for each. They set out to blame everyone else and kept landing on themselves.
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.
05
Cecilia ManducaBeatrice Aliprandi
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.
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.
03
Cecilia ManducaBeatrice Aliprandi
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.
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.
01
Cecilia ManducaBeatrice Aliprandi
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.
Meet Your Hosts

Two ex-VCs turned Operators.
Zero filter.

Cecilia Manduca, co-host of Top of the Ops
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, co-host of Top of the Ops
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.

Good Questions

FAQ

What is Top of the Ops?
Top of the Ops is a podcast hosted by Cecilia Manduca and Beatrice Aliprandi, two former VCs turned operators. Each episode explores the unglamorous, fascinating reality of running the show from behind the scenes: ops, strategy, Chief of Staff life, and everything in between.
Who hosts Top of the Ops?
It's co-hosted by Cecilia Manduca (former VC at Talis Capital, Chief of Staff at Seqera, and FD at PortalOne) and Beatrice Aliprandi (former VC at Lakestar, now Chief of Staff at Praktika).
Where can I listen to Top of the Ops?
Every episode is on YouTube and Spotify. Full show notes and transcripts live right here on this site.
What topics does Top of the Ops cover?
Operations, Chief of Staff roles, startup strategy, managing up, cross-functional leadership, AI and automation in ops, and the behind-the-scenes reality of scaling organisations. It's made for ops professionals, Chiefs of Staff, and anyone in an invisible infrastructure role.
What does a Chief of Staff actually do?
A Chief of Staff is a senior operator who works directly with a CEO or founder, switching between strategy and execution: running planning cycles, fixing broken processes, preparing board materials, and acting as a trusted challenger. We dedicate whole episodes to this, including episode 5, where we walk through our real week-by-week schedules, and episode 7, on the eight ways the role fails.
When should a startup hire a Chief of Staff?
Our view, discussed in episode 4 and episode 7: the sweet spot is usually Series A, when there's early revenue, the company is starting to scale, and the systems for scaling are still being shaped. Pre-seed and seed are usually too early, and by Series B the scope often narrows because functional hires already exist.
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