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Welcome to Calling Operator, a podcast dialing into the stories of startup operators. Tune in as they share their incredible and often challenging journeys of building and scaling startups. Operator.
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Connecting with Laura Warden, head of operations at Folklore. Laura is actually my final guest episode for 2025, and she's actually somebody that's had a great impact on my journey as a chief of staff.
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From the moment I started feeling quite lonely in this role, she welcomed me in with open arms, and I was traveling to Sydney for Sunrise, and I was immediately invited to a lunch with her and a highly curated group of people leaders.
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And she is just somebody that really tries to drive value both within her networks for her team, for the companies that she works for at Folklore.
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So today we discuss scaling teams, filling roles others couldn't, and launching startups at HAYS, to running programs for a thousand-person team at Google, to today running and scaling the operations function at Folklore Ventures.
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She's almost four years in. The chat includes many, many lessons on building for a future need and how to find the right people to get you there, to scaling businesses and building effective processes along the way.
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Huge thank you to Rochelle Ritchie, Savannah Black, and Theresa Lilly for the pre-interview chats and for shaping this episode, and to Laura for giving me her time and joining me on the pod. All right, enjoy the episode.
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[static] Laura Warden, welcome to Calling Operator. Thanks for having me. I am so stoked to have you on the pod. We have a lot of offline one-on-one what-the-hell-do-I-do-in-this-situation chats.
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So I'm so excited to bring your story to the pod today and open source some of your learnings. Amazing. I'm so happy to be here, and I've been so inspired by the people that you've brought on so far.
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So looking forward to hopefully sharing some of that with the audience. Yay. Okay.
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So should we start with a bit of an origin story and something that was interesting in my research is that your family's actually shaped you to be a startup human without you even realizing it.
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So should we start from the top? Absolutely. So my dad has always been in and around startups, more on the consumer side from a product perspective, but both B2B and B2C. And
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I see a lot of parallels in the way that we work and why we do what we do and also why we love it.
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The highs, working through the lows, but also the sort of intense pressure and the intense impact that we've both seen through startup world, and I definitely, looking back, recognize and even as a child really admired the way that he worked through all of those challenges.
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Secondly, we moved to Hong Kong when I was five, and I feel like even from a really young age, that experience really opened my eyes and gave me a deep appreciation for, and even love for, learning about different places and cultures and people.
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And I really feel like that sparked my curiosity and my deep love for learning and being in and around the people side of things.
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And lastly, I really struggled with learning as a child, and that struggle actually continued through different schools and ages and right through to university.
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And I remember even as a really young child getting very frustrated that I couldn't retain information and learn what I'd been taught. And I later got diagnosed with dyslexia, which explained a lot.
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Dyslexia is a neurological difference that affects how the brain processes written and spoken language, and for me, that plays out in two ways.
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Like I mentioned, the challenge retaining the information and also reading out individual letters and numbers, which impacts me less so on a day-to-day basis.
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But many people with dyslexia have strong reasoning and problem-solving skills, and that has been a huge benefit to my career.
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And so looking back on all of those things, I think my childhood life differences really started to shape and explain where I am today.
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And it's amazing to sort of think back because it's only when reflecting that I've actually realized those things. So your first role was team manager for London twenty twelve Olympics.
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So I feel like you've been managing high-performing teams from the very get-go. So do you wanna take us back to that moment?
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And I guess in retrospect, what have you learned since then over these thirteen years on managing high-performing teams? Yeah.
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So the Olympics was my first proper role beyond doing odd jobs through university and school as a, a youngster, and I didn't really know what I was getting myself into, but at the same time, it sounded like an amazing experience to be part of something really big.
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I started day one as an assistant in the retail stores. Rocked up, and it was chaos. Not even organized chaos, just chaos. The stores were flooded with people.
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The shelves were emptying or empty, and the stock was an absolute mess. And the stores were being run by a group of eighteen to twenty something year olds that really had no idea what they were doing and no direction.
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And I think it was due to my want for order and organization, part my problem-solving skills, and then just sheer embarrassment that the shelves were empty
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that I rallied the troops and decided we should split into groups managing different responsibilities.
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Then I was thrown into my first sort of role as managing people because I was officially put into a team manager role, and later went on to manage the stores at the Paralympics, including in the athletes' village.
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My biggest learnings in building high-performing teams over the years, but when I look back even then, I sort of see the start of that, is managing is a really fine line between empathy and putting yourself in someone's shoes while gaining outcomes for a business, while having and giving clear direction in regards to the objectives and the direction that you're going.
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And the easiest and best and most cohesive time in management is when all of those things are working and the three are in unison working together.
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But that's rare, and it's really difficult and a fine balance of having to pick up where one of those three aspects has dropped or is not working.
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And I find those three concepts can be applied from how you think about hiring your high-performing team to managing performance itself, right through to managing an exit process.
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That need for being human, gaining outcomes for the business, and having clear direction and clarity,
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I see the importance of those three and it not really being viable to build and manage high-performing teams without them, to a certain degree, working in unison together.
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And I've definitely seen instances where if one of those three fails consistently, the performance of individuals or teams really breaking down.
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Great, and I'm excited to unpack more of this as we go into your next roles.
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And talking about journeys, so your journey took you from the UK to Sydney, and from your arrival in Sydney and through your experience, you've really bridged three worlds.
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You've got recruitment talent, big tech operations, and VC startup support, and I guess multiplying and amplifying in your current role as head of ops at Folklore.
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So I think what's really interesting to call out here is that you understand challenges at really different scales and contexts, and I'd love to hear about that journey.
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I guess, what are your biggest lessons from Hays, and how would you like to move through that timeline? Yeah, absolutely. So
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I arrived in Sydney with probably what you'd consider zero experience when searching for a job and a history of art degree.
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But I feel like there's been three themes that have really stuck with me in terms of my learning and journey, and I guess have helped me get to where I am today.
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And those are the importance of network and building really strong relationships,
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the importance of self-motivation in both big corporates and startups, and the fact that change throughout your career and within an operations role is inevitable, and that change itself gives individuals and people in operations roles so much opportunity.
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So I can go through my journey because I think those three weave really strongly into my journey, even right from the beginning.
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I landed a job at Hays in a team support role, and that was the first time I realized how important network was because I got that job through someone I know, and I'm really lucky, but I've also put the work in to have got every role that I've got through people I know and the network that I've been able to build.
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And so I started at Hays as an admin, pretty much scanning documents and loading and unloading the dishwashers. It was a very big office. We've all been there. [laughs] Oh, but I was good on it.
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[laughs] So I got to a point where, say, in Australia, the need for sponsorship was looming, and my manager backed me to do an assessment center, which you had to do to become a recruitment consultant, and they were notoriously grueling.
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I did it and I failed miserably. It was so embarrassing, and my manager still backed me to do the job. So somehow I became a consultant, and it was awful. We were having to do cold business development at desks.
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Everyone was listening. I felt like I'd really let her and the rest of the team down, but I persisted.
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And I also see, I guess, as another lesson throughout my career, is that persistence pays off, and it can be really hard, and at that point I had no choice.
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It was either I make this work or I am on a flight home because I can't get sponsored.
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But one day something just clicked and I guess that was a massive lesson for me that I've also carried with me is that a lot of what I've done in my career is very relationship driven.
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And yes, product is important, but people had to trust me as an individual and that I was going to deliver on the promise that I was making as a consultant.
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And so the next year I sort of went from panicking every day, really struggling, crying through to being one of the highest performing consultants in New South Wales.
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Candidates became clients, clients became candidates and I had an amazing opportunity to work with some great businesses from getting Airtasker off the ground to launching Dropbox in Australia to working with trading firms and some of the biggest banks in Australia.
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And then I had the opportunity to step into management role and I guess this is where I first started to realize that change opened opportunities because someone had stepped out the team and there was an opportunity to step into management, which I didn't want to do.
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But my director at the time encouraged me to do it and this really shaped my career because I loved stepping into management.
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It's extremely challenging, but for me it's been one of the most rewarding parts of my career. And also for you at that point you were 25.
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So that's just like holy moly, like how am I gonna manage these humans that are potentially either my age or older and- Older... some younger. Yeah. It was and there like in many companies there was two streams.
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There was the business side so IC, the individual contributor side or there was management side.
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And so those that had chosen management were often managing much more senior even and older individual contributors and that was one of my biggest learnings which was observe.
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Don't go in as a bulldozer and I've taken that with me in every role that I've had, especially where I've inherited teams which is don't go in and set all of the new, which are typically your expectations.
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Really observe who they are, how they've got to where they are today, what's working for them as individuals and teams and then see what needs to be changed, especially when thinking about curating high-performing teams.
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But yeah, Hays really shaped my career and me as a person and it gave me a confidence that I really don't feel like I'd otherwise have.
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Believe it or not, I actually was quite timid back then and it taught me a lot of rigor and resilience.
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I see that now being so important in both working in big tech and transitioning to the startup side.
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Moving to Google, they had been a big client of Hays, but a real challenge to work with because we got limited information on how to recruit and work with them and the account had sort of dropped off.
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And so I'd seen the opportunity and persevered and built the relationships and understanding of what would work for them and we managed to turn that account round.
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At the same time I'd realized that although I'd had the most incredible learning journey at Hays, I wasn't learning as drastically as I had been and I thought if I didn't take a step now, when would I?
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So Google had approached me again through relationships and the network that I'd built there and that was like learning en masse and I feel so privileged to have worked there.
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Those three years just feel like a massive training ground for everything that I'm now doing and I feel so lucky and privileged to have worked at a company at the cutting edge of what it does and with the people I managed to meet and work with there.
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People are often surprised that in big tech, yes you've got maybe a more structured role description than working in an early stage startup, but it's still an extremely autonomous environment, at least Google was and there was such a need for self-motivation.
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You're working in global teams, juggling so many projects on top of core work, similar to often in startups and it really surprised me how much that set me up and my role there was twofold.
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So I was half managing a team of at most 44 team members across Singapore and Australia and then working on projects and people and culture programs for our team which was about 1,000 people globally.
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And during that time so much changed. The level of automation that was being adopted, team structure, people changes, things moved extremely fast
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and I guess that takes me onto one of the learnings that I really found there which was change is inevitable and for an operator Change is a given.
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It's not only sort of an operator's role to deal with the change, but you actually have to help a company and the team and the founders through that change.
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And I realized that I actually thrive off change, and I think that's really set me up for moving to Folklore and being in a world where not only things are changing internally so fast, but working with the companies that I work with that are changing and developing and scaling so fast.
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I'm going through a huge change moment, and so is CoVentures with raising our second fund, and you become this, like, sponge that just absorbs all the springy movements.
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But before we get into Folklore, you often talk about operational rigor, and you're gonna have a number of learnings that worked for you at Google.
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But I'd love to know in the context of bringing it back to what you learned about operational rigor at a big tech giant and what's actually, I guess, applicable in an early-stage environment.
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'Cause I feel like this is a little bit of a superpower for you.
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Like, I hear it from your teams, I hear it from the companies that you work for, that you just bring this operational rigor, but you know how to rightsize it to the company that you're supporting.
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Absolutely, and I think that rightsizing is so important. You can't go to an early-stage startup of 10 people, even 50 people, and try and implement Google-sized processes. It's not gonna work. The team won't buy in.
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The processes won't be followed. So it is so important to rightsize it, and the way I see being able to do that the best way is, I guess, going back to the beginning, which is what is the strategy?
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What is the end goal that you're trying to get towards?
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And breaking it down and deconstructing those thoughts as to what's gonna work, both in terms of the company direction and the people that we've got here, and assessing what's going to work for the team and the company.
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And that can be across every different department of a company right through to company strategy, and applying
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what is best practice or what seems like best practice and what good looks like for the different teams and for the company as a whole. Thinking of examples of that,
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what works for a very small team in terms of collaboration, and that could be anything from how you communicate and run meetings and run strategy sessions, is very different to a company at a very different size to you.
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Something that I say all the time is it has to be intentional.
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The way that you construct or even deconstruct 'cause something's not working and reconstruct a process has to be so intentional and applicable to you as a company and the team as individuals.
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For any listeners that are either going through this process themselves or they are, I guess, just thinking how to make their function itself operate more smoothly, do you have a framework, or how are you guiding companies through this exercise?
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Two things. One is looking at what they've got already and seeing if we can adapt that. The second is starting from the beginning.
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If we could do this in the most optimal way, would we structure this the same way that it's structured now?
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Because often the thought of that is way more scary than actually doing it, and if you start something from scratch, many of the things that you're already doing might work. So five aspects of those would be great.
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We can carry on doing them, maybe minor tweaks. And the other five aspects might be starting from scratch, but it's better to do that now than to get further down the line and processes break or aspects not be working.
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Which kind of brings us to your role today. Operator. I have a quick ask. This show is all about creating space for tech operators and learning how to be a better operator along the way.
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Please help me reach the builders, doers, and multipliers behind great founders by hitting subscribe or follow wherever you're listening. Thank you. Operator. So you're working in VC. You're in head of ops role.
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A huge part of your role, I guess what we've already touched on, is supporting the companies that you work for.
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Is there any kind of grounding to why you chose VC or why an ops role in VC that, like, helps kind of bridge these two stories? Yes. I was getting to a point at Google where automation was taking over.
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I realized that it wouldn't be long before my team wasn't in existence in the way that it was.
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And at the time Folklore reached out to me based on a relationship that I'd had from years and years ago, they were looking for a head of people and culture.
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And so I had a couple of chats with them and met Alistair Coleman, our managing partner, and I guess one of the challenges I was thinking through when thinking of leaving Google was,
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where will I have the opportunity to work with this many smart people again?
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I met Al, and he from initial meeting challenged the way I thought and got me to think differently than I'd ever thought before.
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I realized that I would again have a massive learning curve coming into a role like this, but I would be constantly challenged and constantly learning, and that has absolutely rung true.
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So I went from a team of 1,000-plus people to me, myself, and I. I went from a company of 200,000 people to 12.
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This was scary and exciting all in one, but I felt like so much of what I'd learned in the people and culture and implementation and project management
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set me up for success in the role that I stepped into, which was head of people and culture. Then the challenges there though were that I didn't have that internal network.
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I didn't have 1,000 people to run ideas by that were all very competent and amazing in the fields that I was in.
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So I've really leaned on building an external network of specialists around me that I could lean on, have discussions with, hopefully provide some value back to as well, so the likes of the amazing Theresa Lillie, who I know you spoke to in relation to this podcast, Diana Ward, Nicole Hopkins, all in the people space, and many amazing operators out there, um, like yourself and within the portfolio who I work with and support but also collaborate and learn from as well.
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And so that was a big learning and something I've really thoroughly enjoyed as well but has really shaped my time and I guess ability to be as productive as possible at Folklore.
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On that actually, there were a few comments that I've always like thought about you, but like there was things like Savannah Black, who's actually working for CryptoTaxCalculator, now rebranded though to- Sum... Sum.
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There we go. Very exciting. Um, she said, "Laura made me realize how important it is to have a network and rely on different people and opinions when building a company."
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Theresa said, "Thoughtful in terms of her work, people, and process, and also I think you know how to involve the right people, and you don't do it all yourself."
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And I think that's like a real tension point that operators fall into as like trying to do it all themself, especially when you turn and, and transition into a one-woman band.
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It's true, and actually something I was thinking through is a huge amount of an operations role could be seen as subjective, or there's multiple ways to do something.
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And there might not necessarily be a right or a wrong, so it's trying to find out what the optimal way is.
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And I mean, we all know that diversity of thought is so valuable, and it really is because people can bring different perspectives but also really catch you out where you're not seeing round corners.
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And so having that network I think has been one of the ways that I've learnt the quickest and in the most valuable way throughout my career.
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And just on that, I often say it's easy to build relationships, but it's really hard to maintain relationships and keep those relationships live, and I guess that's personal and professional.
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And so I personally find that I can't have 100 relationships that are really w- like great and productive, and that I feel like I'm giving enough back as well. And so
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I really value having a small network of people that can really give each other value and get a lot out of work and life, and that's helped me in my career. Yeah.
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Actually, you also said something above about Al helped you change the way you think.
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Is there any secret sauce there or a thought starter or prompt that would help this audience in kind of reframing some of how we think? Al is an amazing thinker.
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What I find is thinking outside the box, so when you've considered absolutely everything, every way you could run a project, every way you could approach something, taking a step back and thinking, "Have I actually?"
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And that is where someone else's opinion could come in if you're able to, if it's not something confidential you're working through.
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But it is really not getting stuck in the weeds, even though we are stuck in the weeds, and lifting yourself- Rising [laughs]... Yeah, oh, yeah, rising up and looking back down and thinking, "What have I missed?
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What's gonna come in and deter, take away from, make this not as impactful as it could be?"
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That is where I've seen him enable my thinking around operations in a way that I couldn't imagine. Yeah.
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And I guess I would really love to talk about some of your experiences at Folklore but through the problems that you're helping companies solve.
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So as we said at the top, you've seen a lot of different challenges through different contexts and scales, and Folklore invest in companies from pre-seed, and you follow on or make later-stage investments.
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What are some of the reoccurring operational challenges that founders and/or I guess their founding operators and trusted ELTs face, and specifically some of your perspectives on how to solve them? Yeah. Absolutely. So-
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One of the most common hurdles I see is where companies, founders, operators
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have moved too fast, too quick, and like we were saying previously, not considered the processes and the impact that moving very fast can have, and essentially losing that operational rigor while they're scaling.
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So what happens there is that fractured team and fractured processes.
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So thinking about how you travel and keep up and construct and reconstruct processes as you're going through that scaling is very valuable.
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On that, like with relationships, like I mentioned, you need to manage and create the new habits.
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Implementing a process can be the easy piece, but actually embedding it and making sure people are brought into it and creating that new habit is important too. And if it's not becoming habit, why is it not working?
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And really being flexible around how you measure and embed processes and practices within an organization. Another is founder span and control.
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So founders themselves or the teams around them, not knowing if and when they should hire leadership roles or roles that are gonna take responsibility and span out of their roles.
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This is really where I see the need to assess what's still being done well and what isn't, and therefore what and who do you need to fill those gaps, and being very honest and open and vulnerable about discussing those things.
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Another is insufficient communication. That can be so broad or, or very particular. The need to be very intentional about communication as you scale.
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Something I really admired at Google was the leadership teams, right from Sundar down to our head of country, to the head of people globally, they felt visible even though
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some of them I'd never even met, and that being intentional around communication really made you buy into them as leaders, and that changes a lot from a founder being with a team of five people to then scaling and them being a lot less visible across an organization.
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But another way I see communication breaking down is as companies and teams get bigger, individuals just not having what they need and the information they need to be productive.
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So really thinking about who needs what information when I think is really important. On that last one, actually, and this is top of mind for me, what did Google do well in terms of that communication piece?
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Or is there like a mental model or framework that I can take into my work that helps everyone feel like they have the information that they need, leadership are visible, et cetera?
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I put this down to similar to learning, everyone buys into different ways of communication. Some people buy into seeing a video and being on an all hands and seeing people live.
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Some people will love written communication and a newsletter and being able to read and take in and reread and reflect on the numbers or the facts in an email. So what I feel like they did really well was
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they tailored communication to so many different audiences. We would know pretty much, unless stuff got leaked, changes, updates extremely quickly.
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So I felt like not only were they very visible, they were very honest- Mm-hmm... and open. And going through to sort of communication now and in my role, again, I find like how everyone's motivated differently. Everyone
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loves learning and absorbing information differently. So some people love the numbers, and they're motivated by the numbers, and they just want to see the numbers.
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Some people love the story, and so bringing those numbers to life is super valuable, and that's something that I've really tried to take with me, is everyone digests and has a different interest when it comes to communication and learning.
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Yeah. And I guess it's just testing and refining until-- like, what's that point that you know it's getting through? What's that aha moment that you've seen?
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Either testing or discussing with the people that you are sending your communication to.
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So internally, it's very rare that people feedback to you or a lot of people feedback to you, "Yeah, that was absolutely great," without you asking. So without-- if you-- uh, don't ask, you don't know.
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And so doing feedback, gaining feedback, asking the question is just so valuable. And then I guess it's whether people are implementing the information that you've given them in their work.
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But especially when you're implementing new communications, you can't rely on them doing that straight away. You really do have to test that that communication is getting through.
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Yeah, and I guess in your role, you're testing and refining that all the time via, like, managing your own team. And then also, I guess you can cross-pollinate some of those learnings from portfolio companies, too.
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Absolutely. Every company is different in this respect. You have companies that are 100% on-site. You have companies that are 100% remote. You've got hybrid companies.
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So there is no one size fits all when it comes to this, and so it's figuring out what you need based on your company setup and then what you need in terms of how your company operates. Yeah.
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And actually, when I spoke to Rochelle ahead of this call, who is senior marketing manager at Folklore, one of your direct reports, she said something that all her ideas feel heard, and one of your principles are, great idea, put it in writing.
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Yeah, how are you making your team feel heard and how, in a very noisy environment where so many people have opinions and ideas, how do you create the system that people thrive? You're right. It is noisy.
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There's so many ideas up in the air.
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One piece that I know is so valuable is discussing with the team and even thinking through my role, does this piece of work or project tie back to advancing our goals and the company strategy?
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And so I will always think that through when someone's raising an idea to me and then also get them to think about it, too. But it's very easy to discuss a whole load of things and then action not to happen.
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And so getting things on paper and breaking them down and thinking through, what is this proposal that I'm thinking about? How will it land? What are the goals? What's the budget?
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All the different aspects of a piece of work or a project is very important to then present upwards to leadership, and you have to have so much clarity of thought when presenting something upwards.
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Going back to feeling heard, in an operations role, I manage functions that I don't have experience in prior to working at Folklore, and I'm so grateful for that because I've learnt so much and I feel like I'm becoming more of a specialist, but I'm managing people who are subject matter experts, and I love hearing their ideas because I love learning how different people think.
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But also, they're often ideas that I haven't thought of or wouldn't think of myself.
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And so being able to discuss where it's come from and their thinking behind it and then how it is gonna advance our goals is so valuable, and then we'll often break it down and be like, "Okay,
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is this right at this time?" And yeah, Rochelle's implemented some amazing pieces of marketing work and marketing strategy for the firm and really advanced our branding and, and marketing and comms for the firm. Awesome.
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I wanna know, because you're across so much, and I know you spike in people, but you also spike in ops, so what would you say your superpower is as an operator?
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I would say my superpower is my strong reasoning, creativity, and problem-solving, partnered with being human. Mm. Yay to the humans. People don't lean into that enough. It's true.
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Having managed for a very long time and having managed very big teams,
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one of my biggest learnings and the thing I love the most is working with people and seeing them thrive and go through the amazing journeys that they've been on.
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And the most satisfying part of the role is seeing them achieve and getting promoted or getting the pay rise that they want, and it actually makes all of the hard work that I do feel like it's actually paid off, but it's not for me.
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Like, I am genuinely happy to see them grow. Let's flip it. What would you say a blind spot is or an area that you're working on?
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Sometimes I feel like I'm a jack of all trades and master of none, so I would say a lot [laughs] that I feel like I need to work on, but back to that leadership piece, it's providing very clear directive and directions.
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Things in startups move so unbelievably quickly, and sometimes I feel like things have moved forwards before I've had a chance to give the very clear direction, and so I'm always thinking about what information do people need and get better at that.
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The other piece is not getting drawn into or being too driven by the really tactical thinking that you get drawn into and have to do as part of your role.
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But like what I said at the beginning, and I'm still trying to master of what I really admire in, in Al is really bringing myself up and reflecting on the business objectives as I'm moving through those tactical elements.
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So we're gonna look ahead. So as your vantage point as an operator and at Folklore, what's your outlook for the APAC ecosystem, and what's the opportunity for us as operators to rise to?
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It's a really exciting time for the tech ecosystem in APAC, and there's absolutely a new wave of development coming through.
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And with that, I see founders wanting, needing, and actually hiring generalist operators and people to come in and help scale fast and efficiently.
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And I'd say about three or four years ago, there was a trend of hiring the specialists first, whereas actually now I see them hiring chiefs of staff, heads of ops, COOs, and then building out the specialist teams.
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So whether you are a specialist or a generalist operator, there is so much opportunity with companies having to scale quickly. Operators who can bridge that gap of
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strategy and execution in this environment will really have incredible impact. Do you think there's a sweet spot, though, for placement of those all-rounders in terms of stage? Sorry.
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I see startups hiring these roles earlier and earlier from initial checks at seed stage
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to be able to enable the founders to deliver more in the work that they're more specialized in, depending what the founder's role is, whether that's a CEO, product engineering, et cetera, but to really drive the operational scale and growth of a company.
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Yeah, safe pair of hands, and just somebody that can run at things that they've not done before, which seems bizarre, but that's what we all just need to do, is just, like, figure it out on the job.
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Savannah Black is an incredible example of this. She started working at Crypto Tax Calculator,
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soon to be Sum, very early in their journey, and she has partnered with the founders, enabled them, and enabled the business and advanced the business through partnering and leading and supporting on so many strategic and operational programs that is leading that company to such great heights.
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Go Savannah, and check out her episode if you've not listened to it yet. So Laura, we're gonna get into a quick-fire round. I'm gonna ask you a bunch of questions, and just say what comes to mind. Sure. Operator.
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Okay, so what would you tell your 25-year-old self stepping into management? Zoom out.
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Early on, I thought being in a management and leadership role was about solving everyone's problems quickly, but over time I've really learned it's about building the systems and principles and culture for the team to be able to solve
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problems themselves and without me. I heard this great saying, which is, "Your job isn't to be the hero. It's to build an environment where heroes can emerge," and I just love it.
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Most common question you get from founders. It would have to be, "How do I hire this role I have never hired before?" And now you've put yourself in a position where I'm gonna say, "What do you say?"
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[laughs] I say, "Don't think about every bullet of the job description." I say, "What is the outcome that you're trying to achieve for this role? Why do you need this role?
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And let's break it down in terms of actually what's the role you're hiring for and how do we build out what you're looking for, and therefore the job description, et cetera." Bueno.
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And the most common questions you get from operators. How do I balance my priorities? I'm gonna ask you for your answer again. [laughs] It's something I still feel like I'm mastering. My honest answer is
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prioritize on a quarterly basis but also on a monthly, daily, and hourly basis.
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I, when I get to my laptop or computer, even if I've just been away to get a cup of tea, I come back and I think, "What do I need to deliver right now?" And that's how I prioritize. I love it. So granular.
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Actually, and such a good reset. Mm. I'm using Egg Timer a lot at the minute with my Pomodoro sessions. [laughs] Interesting.
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I find it helpful because I will have 20 tabs open at one time, and I will be like, "What of those is the highest priority, highest impact thing that I need to do right now?"
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So then you are a framework queen, so I would love to know a book, a framework, or a tool that you swear by. I've got a lot. Can I say a couple? Yeah, please. A note-taking tool, a dictation tool.
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Book, Good Strategy/Bad Strategy partnered with Ride of a Lifetime. Oh, I love it. What's Ride of a Lifetime?
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It is by Rob Iger, the CEO of Disney, and it is about how he turned Disney round, his leadership style-
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Sprinkled with a bit of Disney magic Beautiful. And talking about leaders, one to three leaders that you admire and why I think they've all been mentioned, but Sundar at Google for the ability to feel visible.
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Al, 'cause his ability to make individuals, and definitely myself, think differently and be challenged in ways that I never thought I would be challenged or needed.
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And my parents for the work they did in leading us In making you a beautiful human that you are, the kind, beautiful human Very kind [laughs] So then a piece of advice that you've received that you'd love to pass on
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I've got two. [laughs] Everything swings in roundabouts, and I really do believe this.
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I've seen this come through in relationships, having to make tough decisions, that they swing back maybe in the short run, maybe in the long run, and that's really proven true in my journey.
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And the other, and I'm not a big swearer, so I find this hard, but shit happens.
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A lot of ops is around knowing that that is the case, accepting that is the case, and figuring out how you pick yourself, your team, and the organization up from that
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Yeah, and actually, this wasn't one of my questions, but what that brought up for me is you've said to me before, "As a people leader, no one's gonna bring a slice of cake to your desk." It's true.
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I think it's reflective of ops and people.
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You're often having to deal with the really challenging stuff, and whether that is performance-related pieces, company performance-related pieces, you're always on, always working hard, and often you are having to sort out those really challenging parts of company building.
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And someone actually said it to me, "As a people person, no one brings a cake and a cup of tea to your office. It's always a problem."
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And so if I could give you guys advice, anyone advice, go and take your ops people [laughs] or people you work with a piece of cake and a cup of tea It's so true.
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And then talking about operators, who should I bring on the podcast next? Again, I've got many. Romy Bundy, who is head of ops at Canopy, one of our portfolio companies.
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I really love working with her, and she has such an honest approach. Naomi Brown, who is chief of staff at Nido Education.
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Her and I met through a mentor program four years ago, and we have stayed in touch, and we've mentored each other through different parts of our journey and become very close.
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She's taken Nido Education through so much change, right through to IPO. And Theresa Lilly, who you spoke to, who's an incredible people operator,
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so smart, incredible insights, and has been through a huge and impressive journey herself.
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[static] So we've spoken a lot about the jobs to be done today, but we've not necessarily spoken about mindset or daily practices that gets you through the chaos of scaling.
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So if you had to name ritual, a mindset, a daily practice that gets you through, what would it be? Spending time with my dog. [laughs] Sunny. We've not mentioned Sunny Just so that...
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[laughs] I've always been a very active person, but ever since having Sunny, who is my five-year-old golden retriever,
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doing two walks a day with him really helps me set and reset my very busy mind.
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Sometimes if I'm going through a more stressful period, even just looking at him calms me down. [laughs] That's so cute. [laughs] Yeah, I've, I've never seen you blush, and you just blushed then. [laughs] Oh my goodness.
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Oh- You're like-... he's my pride and joy Oh He's, like, the best decision I've made in my entire life. [laughs] Aw. They really do have that impact. They're just, like- Mm...
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so special and really know when there's something wrong Yeah. Sunny is my support, but also the people you surround yourself with.
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As I was talking about network, I also feel in my relationships outside of work, I have-- I'm not someone who has, like, a massive group of 50 friends. I have a smaller amount of very close friends that I
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get amazing energy from, and I come away feeling happy and energized. And I'm so grateful for my partner and my family and my partner's family and our friendship group because I think it's so important to be able to
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have and separate work and life when you care so much about work Yeah, totally. Well, Laura, that's all we've got time today, so thank you so much.
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And if anyone wants to connect with you after listening to this episode, where can they find you? LinkedIn. And that's a wrap.
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Today's episode was recorded by me, your host, Laura Nichol, with original music composed by Stephen Sheldon. If you enjoyed this episode, please give us a follow, and we'll see you next time. [outro music]
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Welcome to Calling Operator, a podcast dialing into the stories of startup operators. Tune in as they share their incredible and often challenging journeys of building and scaling startups. Operator.
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Connecting with Laura Warden, head of operations at Folklore. Laura is actually my final guest episode for 2025, and she's actually somebody that's had a great impact on my journey as a chief of staff.
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From the moment I started feeling quite lonely in this role, she welcomed me in with open arms, and I was traveling to Sydney for Sunrise, and I was immediately invited to a lunch with her and a highly curated group of people leaders.
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And she is just somebody that really tries to drive value both within her networks for her team, for the companies that she works for at Folklore.
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So today we discuss scaling teams, filling roles others couldn't, and launching startups at HAYS, to running programs for a thousand-person team at Google, to today running and scaling the operations function at Folklore Ventures.
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She's almost four years in. The chat includes many, many lessons on building for a future need and how to find the right people to get you there, to scaling businesses and building effective processes along the way.
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Huge thank you to Rochelle Ritchie, Savannah Black, and Theresa Lilly for the pre-interview chats and for shaping this episode, and to Laura for giving me her time and joining me on the pod. All right, enjoy the episode.
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[static] Laura Warden, welcome to Calling Operator. Thanks for having me. I am so stoked to have you on the pod. We have a lot of offline one-on-one what-the-hell-do-I-do-in-this-situation chats.
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So I'm so excited to bring your story to the pod today and open source some of your learnings. Amazing. I'm so happy to be here, and I've been so inspired by the people that you've brought on so far.
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So looking forward to hopefully sharing some of that with the audience. Yay. Okay.
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So should we start with a bit of an origin story and something that was interesting in my research is that your family's actually shaped you to be a startup human without you even realizing it.
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So should we start from the top? Absolutely. So my dad has always been in and around startups, more on the consumer side from a product perspective, but both B2B and B2C. And
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I see a lot of parallels in the way that we work and why we do what we do and also why we love it.
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The highs, working through the lows, but also the sort of intense pressure and the intense impact that we've both seen through startup world, and I definitely, looking back, recognize and even as a child really admired the way that he worked through all of those challenges.
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Secondly, we moved to Hong Kong when I was five, and I feel like even from a really young age, that experience really opened my eyes and gave me a deep appreciation for, and even love for, learning about different places and cultures and people.
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And I really feel like that sparked my curiosity and my deep love for learning and being in and around the people side of things.
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And lastly, I really struggled with learning as a child, and that struggle actually continued through different schools and ages and right through to university.
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And I remember even as a really young child getting very frustrated that I couldn't retain information and learn what I'd been taught. And I later got diagnosed with dyslexia, which explained a lot.
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Dyslexia is a neurological difference that affects how the brain processes written and spoken language, and for me, that plays out in two ways.
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Like I mentioned, the challenge retaining the information and also reading out individual letters and numbers, which impacts me less so on a day-to-day basis.
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But many people with dyslexia have strong reasoning and problem-solving skills, and that has been a huge benefit to my career.
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And so looking back on all of those things, I think my childhood life differences really started to shape and explain where I am today.
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And it's amazing to sort of think back because it's only when reflecting that I've actually realized those things. So your first role was team manager for London twenty twelve Olympics.
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So I feel like you've been managing high-performing teams from the very get-go. So do you wanna take us back to that moment?
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And I guess in retrospect, what have you learned since then over these thirteen years on managing high-performing teams? Yeah.
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So the Olympics was my first proper role beyond doing odd jobs through university and school as a, a youngster, and I didn't really know what I was getting myself into, but at the same time, it sounded like an amazing experience to be part of something really big.
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I started day one as an assistant in the retail stores. Rocked up, and it was chaos. Not even organized chaos, just chaos. The stores were flooded with people.
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The shelves were emptying or empty, and the stock was an absolute mess. And the stores were being run by a group of eighteen to twenty something year olds that really had no idea what they were doing and no direction.
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And I think it was due to my want for order and organization, part my problem-solving skills, and then just sheer embarrassment that the shelves were empty
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that I rallied the troops and decided we should split into groups managing different responsibilities.
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Then I was thrown into my first sort of role as managing people because I was officially put into a team manager role, and later went on to manage the stores at the Paralympics, including in the athletes' village.
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My biggest learnings in building high-performing teams over the years, but when I look back even then, I sort of see the start of that, is managing is a really fine line between empathy and putting yourself in someone's shoes while gaining outcomes for a business, while having and giving clear direction in regards to the objectives and the direction that you're going.
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And the easiest and best and most cohesive time in management is when all of those things are working and the three are in unison working together.
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But that's rare, and it's really difficult and a fine balance of having to pick up where one of those three aspects has dropped or is not working.
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And I find those three concepts can be applied from how you think about hiring your high-performing team to managing performance itself, right through to managing an exit process.
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That need for being human, gaining outcomes for the business, and having clear direction and clarity,
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I see the importance of those three and it not really being viable to build and manage high-performing teams without them, to a certain degree, working in unison together.
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And I've definitely seen instances where if one of those three fails consistently, the performance of individuals or teams really breaking down.
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Great, and I'm excited to unpack more of this as we go into your next roles.
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And talking about journeys, so your journey took you from the UK to Sydney, and from your arrival in Sydney and through your experience, you've really bridged three worlds.
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You've got recruitment talent, big tech operations, and VC startup support, and I guess multiplying and amplifying in your current role as head of ops at Folklore.
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So I think what's really interesting to call out here is that you understand challenges at really different scales and contexts, and I'd love to hear about that journey.
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I guess, what are your biggest lessons from Hays, and how would you like to move through that timeline? Yeah, absolutely. So
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I arrived in Sydney with probably what you'd consider zero experience when searching for a job and a history of art degree.
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But I feel like there's been three themes that have really stuck with me in terms of my learning and journey, and I guess have helped me get to where I am today.
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And those are the importance of network and building really strong relationships,
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the importance of self-motivation in both big corporates and startups, and the fact that change throughout your career and within an operations role is inevitable, and that change itself gives individuals and people in operations roles so much opportunity.
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So I can go through my journey because I think those three weave really strongly into my journey, even right from the beginning.
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I landed a job at Hays in a team support role, and that was the first time I realized how important network was because I got that job through someone I know, and I'm really lucky, but I've also put the work in to have got every role that I've got through people I know and the network that I've been able to build.
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And so I started at Hays as an admin, pretty much scanning documents and loading and unloading the dishwashers. It was a very big office. We've all been there. [laughs] Oh, but I was good on it.
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[laughs] So I got to a point where, say, in Australia, the need for sponsorship was looming, and my manager backed me to do an assessment center, which you had to do to become a recruitment consultant, and they were notoriously grueling.
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I did it and I failed miserably. It was so embarrassing, and my manager still backed me to do the job. So somehow I became a consultant, and it was awful. We were having to do cold business development at desks.
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Everyone was listening. I felt like I'd really let her and the rest of the team down, but I persisted.
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And I also see, I guess, as another lesson throughout my career, is that persistence pays off, and it can be really hard, and at that point I had no choice.
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It was either I make this work or I am on a flight home because I can't get sponsored.
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But one day something just clicked and I guess that was a massive lesson for me that I've also carried with me is that a lot of what I've done in my career is very relationship driven.
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And yes, product is important, but people had to trust me as an individual and that I was going to deliver on the promise that I was making as a consultant.
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And so the next year I sort of went from panicking every day, really struggling, crying through to being one of the highest performing consultants in New South Wales.
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Candidates became clients, clients became candidates and I had an amazing opportunity to work with some great businesses from getting Airtasker off the ground to launching Dropbox in Australia to working with trading firms and some of the biggest banks in Australia.
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And then I had the opportunity to step into management role and I guess this is where I first started to realize that change opened opportunities because someone had stepped out the team and there was an opportunity to step into management, which I didn't want to do.
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But my director at the time encouraged me to do it and this really shaped my career because I loved stepping into management.
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It's extremely challenging, but for me it's been one of the most rewarding parts of my career. And also for you at that point you were 25.
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So that's just like holy moly, like how am I gonna manage these humans that are potentially either my age or older and- Older... some younger. Yeah. It was and there like in many companies there was two streams.
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There was the business side so IC, the individual contributor side or there was management side.
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And so those that had chosen management were often managing much more senior even and older individual contributors and that was one of my biggest learnings which was observe.
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Don't go in as a bulldozer and I've taken that with me in every role that I've had, especially where I've inherited teams which is don't go in and set all of the new, which are typically your expectations.
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Really observe who they are, how they've got to where they are today, what's working for them as individuals and teams and then see what needs to be changed, especially when thinking about curating high-performing teams.
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But yeah, Hays really shaped my career and me as a person and it gave me a confidence that I really don't feel like I'd otherwise have.
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Believe it or not, I actually was quite timid back then and it taught me a lot of rigor and resilience.
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I see that now being so important in both working in big tech and transitioning to the startup side.
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Moving to Google, they had been a big client of Hays, but a real challenge to work with because we got limited information on how to recruit and work with them and the account had sort of dropped off.
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And so I'd seen the opportunity and persevered and built the relationships and understanding of what would work for them and we managed to turn that account round.
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At the same time I'd realized that although I'd had the most incredible learning journey at Hays, I wasn't learning as drastically as I had been and I thought if I didn't take a step now, when would I?
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So Google had approached me again through relationships and the network that I'd built there and that was like learning en masse and I feel so privileged to have worked there.
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Those three years just feel like a massive training ground for everything that I'm now doing and I feel so lucky and privileged to have worked at a company at the cutting edge of what it does and with the people I managed to meet and work with there.
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People are often surprised that in big tech, yes you've got maybe a more structured role description than working in an early stage startup, but it's still an extremely autonomous environment, at least Google was and there was such a need for self-motivation.
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You're working in global teams, juggling so many projects on top of core work, similar to often in startups and it really surprised me how much that set me up and my role there was twofold.
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So I was half managing a team of at most 44 team members across Singapore and Australia and then working on projects and people and culture programs for our team which was about 1,000 people globally.
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And during that time so much changed. The level of automation that was being adopted, team structure, people changes, things moved extremely fast
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and I guess that takes me onto one of the learnings that I really found there which was change is inevitable and for an operator Change is a given.
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It's not only sort of an operator's role to deal with the change, but you actually have to help a company and the team and the founders through that change.
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And I realized that I actually thrive off change, and I think that's really set me up for moving to Folklore and being in a world where not only things are changing internally so fast, but working with the companies that I work with that are changing and developing and scaling so fast.
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I'm going through a huge change moment, and so is CoVentures with raising our second fund, and you become this, like, sponge that just absorbs all the springy movements.
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But before we get into Folklore, you often talk about operational rigor, and you're gonna have a number of learnings that worked for you at Google.
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But I'd love to know in the context of bringing it back to what you learned about operational rigor at a big tech giant and what's actually, I guess, applicable in an early-stage environment.
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'Cause I feel like this is a little bit of a superpower for you.
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Like, I hear it from your teams, I hear it from the companies that you work for, that you just bring this operational rigor, but you know how to rightsize it to the company that you're supporting.
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Absolutely, and I think that rightsizing is so important. You can't go to an early-stage startup of 10 people, even 50 people, and try and implement Google-sized processes. It's not gonna work. The team won't buy in.
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The processes won't be followed. So it is so important to rightsize it, and the way I see being able to do that the best way is, I guess, going back to the beginning, which is what is the strategy?
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What is the end goal that you're trying to get towards?
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And breaking it down and deconstructing those thoughts as to what's gonna work, both in terms of the company direction and the people that we've got here, and assessing what's going to work for the team and the company.
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And that can be across every different department of a company right through to company strategy, and applying
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what is best practice or what seems like best practice and what good looks like for the different teams and for the company as a whole. Thinking of examples of that,
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what works for a very small team in terms of collaboration, and that could be anything from how you communicate and run meetings and run strategy sessions, is very different to a company at a very different size to you.
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Something that I say all the time is it has to be intentional.
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The way that you construct or even deconstruct 'cause something's not working and reconstruct a process has to be so intentional and applicable to you as a company and the team as individuals.
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For any listeners that are either going through this process themselves or they are, I guess, just thinking how to make their function itself operate more smoothly, do you have a framework, or how are you guiding companies through this exercise?
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Two things. One is looking at what they've got already and seeing if we can adapt that. The second is starting from the beginning.
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If we could do this in the most optimal way, would we structure this the same way that it's structured now?
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Because often the thought of that is way more scary than actually doing it, and if you start something from scratch, many of the things that you're already doing might work. So five aspects of those would be great.
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We can carry on doing them, maybe minor tweaks. And the other five aspects might be starting from scratch, but it's better to do that now than to get further down the line and processes break or aspects not be working.
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Which kind of brings us to your role today. Operator. I have a quick ask. This show is all about creating space for tech operators and learning how to be a better operator along the way.
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Please help me reach the builders, doers, and multipliers behind great founders by hitting subscribe or follow wherever you're listening. Thank you. Operator. So you're working in VC. You're in head of ops role.
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A huge part of your role, I guess what we've already touched on, is supporting the companies that you work for.
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Is there any kind of grounding to why you chose VC or why an ops role in VC that, like, helps kind of bridge these two stories? Yes. I was getting to a point at Google where automation was taking over.
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I realized that it wouldn't be long before my team wasn't in existence in the way that it was.
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And at the time Folklore reached out to me based on a relationship that I'd had from years and years ago, they were looking for a head of people and culture.
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And so I had a couple of chats with them and met Alistair Coleman, our managing partner, and I guess one of the challenges I was thinking through when thinking of leaving Google was,
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where will I have the opportunity to work with this many smart people again?
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I met Al, and he from initial meeting challenged the way I thought and got me to think differently than I'd ever thought before.
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I realized that I would again have a massive learning curve coming into a role like this, but I would be constantly challenged and constantly learning, and that has absolutely rung true.
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So I went from a team of 1,000-plus people to me, myself, and I. I went from a company of 200,000 people to 12.
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This was scary and exciting all in one, but I felt like so much of what I'd learned in the people and culture and implementation and project management
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set me up for success in the role that I stepped into, which was head of people and culture. Then the challenges there though were that I didn't have that internal network.
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I didn't have 1,000 people to run ideas by that were all very competent and amazing in the fields that I was in.
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So I've really leaned on building an external network of specialists around me that I could lean on, have discussions with, hopefully provide some value back to as well, so the likes of the amazing Theresa Lillie, who I know you spoke to in relation to this podcast, Diana Ward, Nicole Hopkins, all in the people space, and many amazing operators out there, um, like yourself and within the portfolio who I work with and support but also collaborate and learn from as well.
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And so that was a big learning and something I've really thoroughly enjoyed as well but has really shaped my time and I guess ability to be as productive as possible at Folklore.
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On that actually, there were a few comments that I've always like thought about you, but like there was things like Savannah Black, who's actually working for CryptoTaxCalculator, now rebranded though to- Sum... Sum.
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There we go. Very exciting. Um, she said, "Laura made me realize how important it is to have a network and rely on different people and opinions when building a company."
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Theresa said, "Thoughtful in terms of her work, people, and process, and also I think you know how to involve the right people, and you don't do it all yourself."
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And I think that's like a real tension point that operators fall into as like trying to do it all themself, especially when you turn and, and transition into a one-woman band.
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It's true, and actually something I was thinking through is a huge amount of an operations role could be seen as subjective, or there's multiple ways to do something.
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And there might not necessarily be a right or a wrong, so it's trying to find out what the optimal way is.
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And I mean, we all know that diversity of thought is so valuable, and it really is because people can bring different perspectives but also really catch you out where you're not seeing round corners.
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And so having that network I think has been one of the ways that I've learnt the quickest and in the most valuable way throughout my career.
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And just on that, I often say it's easy to build relationships, but it's really hard to maintain relationships and keep those relationships live, and I guess that's personal and professional.
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And so I personally find that I can't have 100 relationships that are really w- like great and productive, and that I feel like I'm giving enough back as well. And so
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I really value having a small network of people that can really give each other value and get a lot out of work and life, and that's helped me in my career. Yeah.
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Actually, you also said something above about Al helped you change the way you think.
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Is there any secret sauce there or a thought starter or prompt that would help this audience in kind of reframing some of how we think? Al is an amazing thinker.
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What I find is thinking outside the box, so when you've considered absolutely everything, every way you could run a project, every way you could approach something, taking a step back and thinking, "Have I actually?"
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And that is where someone else's opinion could come in if you're able to, if it's not something confidential you're working through.
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But it is really not getting stuck in the weeds, even though we are stuck in the weeds, and lifting yourself- Rising [laughs]... Yeah, oh, yeah, rising up and looking back down and thinking, "What have I missed?
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What's gonna come in and deter, take away from, make this not as impactful as it could be?"
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That is where I've seen him enable my thinking around operations in a way that I couldn't imagine. Yeah.
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And I guess I would really love to talk about some of your experiences at Folklore but through the problems that you're helping companies solve.
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So as we said at the top, you've seen a lot of different challenges through different contexts and scales, and Folklore invest in companies from pre-seed, and you follow on or make later-stage investments.
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What are some of the reoccurring operational challenges that founders and/or I guess their founding operators and trusted ELTs face, and specifically some of your perspectives on how to solve them? Yeah. Absolutely. So-
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One of the most common hurdles I see is where companies, founders, operators
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have moved too fast, too quick, and like we were saying previously, not considered the processes and the impact that moving very fast can have, and essentially losing that operational rigor while they're scaling.
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So what happens there is that fractured team and fractured processes.
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So thinking about how you travel and keep up and construct and reconstruct processes as you're going through that scaling is very valuable.
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On that, like with relationships, like I mentioned, you need to manage and create the new habits.
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Implementing a process can be the easy piece, but actually embedding it and making sure people are brought into it and creating that new habit is important too. And if it's not becoming habit, why is it not working?
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And really being flexible around how you measure and embed processes and practices within an organization. Another is founder span and control.
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So founders themselves or the teams around them, not knowing if and when they should hire leadership roles or roles that are gonna take responsibility and span out of their roles.
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This is really where I see the need to assess what's still being done well and what isn't, and therefore what and who do you need to fill those gaps, and being very honest and open and vulnerable about discussing those things.
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Another is insufficient communication. That can be so broad or, or very particular. The need to be very intentional about communication as you scale.
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Something I really admired at Google was the leadership teams, right from Sundar down to our head of country, to the head of people globally, they felt visible even though
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some of them I'd never even met, and that being intentional around communication really made you buy into them as leaders, and that changes a lot from a founder being with a team of five people to then scaling and them being a lot less visible across an organization.
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But another way I see communication breaking down is as companies and teams get bigger, individuals just not having what they need and the information they need to be productive.
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So really thinking about who needs what information when I think is really important. On that last one, actually, and this is top of mind for me, what did Google do well in terms of that communication piece?
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Or is there like a mental model or framework that I can take into my work that helps everyone feel like they have the information that they need, leadership are visible, et cetera?
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I put this down to similar to learning, everyone buys into different ways of communication. Some people buy into seeing a video and being on an all hands and seeing people live.
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Some people will love written communication and a newsletter and being able to read and take in and reread and reflect on the numbers or the facts in an email. So what I feel like they did really well was
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they tailored communication to so many different audiences. We would know pretty much, unless stuff got leaked, changes, updates extremely quickly.
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So I felt like not only were they very visible, they were very honest- Mm-hmm... and open. And going through to sort of communication now and in my role, again, I find like how everyone's motivated differently. Everyone
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loves learning and absorbing information differently. So some people love the numbers, and they're motivated by the numbers, and they just want to see the numbers.
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Some people love the story, and so bringing those numbers to life is super valuable, and that's something that I've really tried to take with me, is everyone digests and has a different interest when it comes to communication and learning.
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Yeah. And I guess it's just testing and refining until-- like, what's that point that you know it's getting through? What's that aha moment that you've seen?
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Either testing or discussing with the people that you are sending your communication to.
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So internally, it's very rare that people feedback to you or a lot of people feedback to you, "Yeah, that was absolutely great," without you asking. So without-- if you-- uh, don't ask, you don't know.
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And so doing feedback, gaining feedback, asking the question is just so valuable. And then I guess it's whether people are implementing the information that you've given them in their work.
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But especially when you're implementing new communications, you can't rely on them doing that straight away. You really do have to test that that communication is getting through.
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Yeah, and I guess in your role, you're testing and refining that all the time via, like, managing your own team. And then also, I guess you can cross-pollinate some of those learnings from portfolio companies, too.
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Absolutely. Every company is different in this respect. You have companies that are 100% on-site. You have companies that are 100% remote. You've got hybrid companies.
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So there is no one size fits all when it comes to this, and so it's figuring out what you need based on your company setup and then what you need in terms of how your company operates. Yeah.
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And actually, when I spoke to Rochelle ahead of this call, who is senior marketing manager at Folklore, one of your direct reports, she said something that all her ideas feel heard, and one of your principles are, great idea, put it in writing.
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Yeah, how are you making your team feel heard and how, in a very noisy environment where so many people have opinions and ideas, how do you create the system that people thrive? You're right. It is noisy.
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There's so many ideas up in the air.
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One piece that I know is so valuable is discussing with the team and even thinking through my role, does this piece of work or project tie back to advancing our goals and the company strategy?
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And so I will always think that through when someone's raising an idea to me and then also get them to think about it, too. But it's very easy to discuss a whole load of things and then action not to happen.
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And so getting things on paper and breaking them down and thinking through, what is this proposal that I'm thinking about? How will it land? What are the goals? What's the budget?
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All the different aspects of a piece of work or a project is very important to then present upwards to leadership, and you have to have so much clarity of thought when presenting something upwards.
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Going back to feeling heard, in an operations role, I manage functions that I don't have experience in prior to working at Folklore, and I'm so grateful for that because I've learnt so much and I feel like I'm becoming more of a specialist, but I'm managing people who are subject matter experts, and I love hearing their ideas because I love learning how different people think.
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But also, they're often ideas that I haven't thought of or wouldn't think of myself.
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And so being able to discuss where it's come from and their thinking behind it and then how it is gonna advance our goals is so valuable, and then we'll often break it down and be like, "Okay,
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is this right at this time?" And yeah, Rochelle's implemented some amazing pieces of marketing work and marketing strategy for the firm and really advanced our branding and, and marketing and comms for the firm. Awesome.
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I wanna know, because you're across so much, and I know you spike in people, but you also spike in ops, so what would you say your superpower is as an operator?
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I would say my superpower is my strong reasoning, creativity, and problem-solving, partnered with being human. Mm. Yay to the humans. People don't lean into that enough. It's true.
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Having managed for a very long time and having managed very big teams,
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one of my biggest learnings and the thing I love the most is working with people and seeing them thrive and go through the amazing journeys that they've been on.
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And the most satisfying part of the role is seeing them achieve and getting promoted or getting the pay rise that they want, and it actually makes all of the hard work that I do feel like it's actually paid off, but it's not for me.
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Like, I am genuinely happy to see them grow. Let's flip it. What would you say a blind spot is or an area that you're working on?
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Sometimes I feel like I'm a jack of all trades and master of none, so I would say a lot [laughs] that I feel like I need to work on, but back to that leadership piece, it's providing very clear directive and directions.
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Things in startups move so unbelievably quickly, and sometimes I feel like things have moved forwards before I've had a chance to give the very clear direction, and so I'm always thinking about what information do people need and get better at that.
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The other piece is not getting drawn into or being too driven by the really tactical thinking that you get drawn into and have to do as part of your role.
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But like what I said at the beginning, and I'm still trying to master of what I really admire in, in Al is really bringing myself up and reflecting on the business objectives as I'm moving through those tactical elements.
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So we're gonna look ahead. So as your vantage point as an operator and at Folklore, what's your outlook for the APAC ecosystem, and what's the opportunity for us as operators to rise to?
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It's a really exciting time for the tech ecosystem in APAC, and there's absolutely a new wave of development coming through.
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And with that, I see founders wanting, needing, and actually hiring generalist operators and people to come in and help scale fast and efficiently.
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And I'd say about three or four years ago, there was a trend of hiring the specialists first, whereas actually now I see them hiring chiefs of staff, heads of ops, COOs, and then building out the specialist teams.
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So whether you are a specialist or a generalist operator, there is so much opportunity with companies having to scale quickly. Operators who can bridge that gap of
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strategy and execution in this environment will really have incredible impact. Do you think there's a sweet spot, though, for placement of those all-rounders in terms of stage? Sorry.
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I see startups hiring these roles earlier and earlier from initial checks at seed stage
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to be able to enable the founders to deliver more in the work that they're more specialized in, depending what the founder's role is, whether that's a CEO, product engineering, et cetera, but to really drive the operational scale and growth of a company.
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Yeah, safe pair of hands, and just somebody that can run at things that they've not done before, which seems bizarre, but that's what we all just need to do, is just, like, figure it out on the job.
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Savannah Black is an incredible example of this. She started working at Crypto Tax Calculator,
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soon to be Sum, very early in their journey, and she has partnered with the founders, enabled them, and enabled the business and advanced the business through partnering and leading and supporting on so many strategic and operational programs that is leading that company to such great heights.
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Go Savannah, and check out her episode if you've not listened to it yet. So Laura, we're gonna get into a quick-fire round. I'm gonna ask you a bunch of questions, and just say what comes to mind. Sure. Operator.
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Okay, so what would you tell your 25-year-old self stepping into management? Zoom out.
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Early on, I thought being in a management and leadership role was about solving everyone's problems quickly, but over time I've really learned it's about building the systems and principles and culture for the team to be able to solve
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problems themselves and without me. I heard this great saying, which is, "Your job isn't to be the hero. It's to build an environment where heroes can emerge," and I just love it.
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Most common question you get from founders. It would have to be, "How do I hire this role I have never hired before?" And now you've put yourself in a position where I'm gonna say, "What do you say?"
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[laughs] I say, "Don't think about every bullet of the job description." I say, "What is the outcome that you're trying to achieve for this role? Why do you need this role?
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And let's break it down in terms of actually what's the role you're hiring for and how do we build out what you're looking for, and therefore the job description, et cetera." Bueno.
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And the most common questions you get from operators. How do I balance my priorities? I'm gonna ask you for your answer again. [laughs] It's something I still feel like I'm mastering. My honest answer is
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prioritize on a quarterly basis but also on a monthly, daily, and hourly basis.
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I, when I get to my laptop or computer, even if I've just been away to get a cup of tea, I come back and I think, "What do I need to deliver right now?" And that's how I prioritize. I love it. So granular.
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Actually, and such a good reset. Mm. I'm using Egg Timer a lot at the minute with my Pomodoro sessions. [laughs] Interesting.
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I find it helpful because I will have 20 tabs open at one time, and I will be like, "What of those is the highest priority, highest impact thing that I need to do right now?"
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So then you are a framework queen, so I would love to know a book, a framework, or a tool that you swear by. I've got a lot. Can I say a couple? Yeah, please. A note-taking tool, a dictation tool.
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Book, Good Strategy/Bad Strategy partnered with Ride of a Lifetime. Oh, I love it. What's Ride of a Lifetime?
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It is by Rob Iger, the CEO of Disney, and it is about how he turned Disney round, his leadership style-
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Sprinkled with a bit of Disney magic Beautiful. And talking about leaders, one to three leaders that you admire and why I think they've all been mentioned, but Sundar at Google for the ability to feel visible.
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Al, 'cause his ability to make individuals, and definitely myself, think differently and be challenged in ways that I never thought I would be challenged or needed.
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And my parents for the work they did in leading us In making you a beautiful human that you are, the kind, beautiful human Very kind [laughs] So then a piece of advice that you've received that you'd love to pass on
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I've got two. [laughs] Everything swings in roundabouts, and I really do believe this.
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I've seen this come through in relationships, having to make tough decisions, that they swing back maybe in the short run, maybe in the long run, and that's really proven true in my journey.
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And the other, and I'm not a big swearer, so I find this hard, but shit happens.
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A lot of ops is around knowing that that is the case, accepting that is the case, and figuring out how you pick yourself, your team, and the organization up from that
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Yeah, and actually, this wasn't one of my questions, but what that brought up for me is you've said to me before, "As a people leader, no one's gonna bring a slice of cake to your desk." It's true.
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I think it's reflective of ops and people.
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You're often having to deal with the really challenging stuff, and whether that is performance-related pieces, company performance-related pieces, you're always on, always working hard, and often you are having to sort out those really challenging parts of company building.
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And someone actually said it to me, "As a people person, no one brings a cake and a cup of tea to your office. It's always a problem."
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And so if I could give you guys advice, anyone advice, go and take your ops people [laughs] or people you work with a piece of cake and a cup of tea It's so true.
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And then talking about operators, who should I bring on the podcast next? Again, I've got many. Romy Bundy, who is head of ops at Canopy, one of our portfolio companies.
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I really love working with her, and she has such an honest approach. Naomi Brown, who is chief of staff at Nido Education.
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Her and I met through a mentor program four years ago, and we have stayed in touch, and we've mentored each other through different parts of our journey and become very close.
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She's taken Nido Education through so much change, right through to IPO. And Theresa Lilly, who you spoke to, who's an incredible people operator,
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so smart, incredible insights, and has been through a huge and impressive journey herself.
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[static] So we've spoken a lot about the jobs to be done today, but we've not necessarily spoken about mindset or daily practices that gets you through the chaos of scaling.
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So if you had to name ritual, a mindset, a daily practice that gets you through, what would it be? Spending time with my dog. [laughs] Sunny. We've not mentioned Sunny Just so that...
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[laughs] I've always been a very active person, but ever since having Sunny, who is my five-year-old golden retriever,
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doing two walks a day with him really helps me set and reset my very busy mind.
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Sometimes if I'm going through a more stressful period, even just looking at him calms me down. [laughs] That's so cute. [laughs] Yeah, I've, I've never seen you blush, and you just blushed then. [laughs] Oh my goodness.
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Oh- You're like-... he's my pride and joy Oh He's, like, the best decision I've made in my entire life. [laughs] Aw. They really do have that impact. They're just, like- Mm...
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so special and really know when there's something wrong Yeah. Sunny is my support, but also the people you surround yourself with.
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As I was talking about network, I also feel in my relationships outside of work, I have-- I'm not someone who has, like, a massive group of 50 friends. I have a smaller amount of very close friends that I
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get amazing energy from, and I come away feeling happy and energized. And I'm so grateful for my partner and my family and my partner's family and our friendship group because I think it's so important to be able to
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have and separate work and life when you care so much about work Yeah, totally. Well, Laura, that's all we've got time today, so thank you so much.
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And if anyone wants to connect with you after listening to this episode, where can they find you? LinkedIn. And that's a wrap.
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Today's episode was recorded by me, your host, Laura Nichol, with original music composed by Stephen Sheldon. If you enjoyed this episode, please give us a follow, and we'll see you next time. [outro music]
