Calling Operator

☎️ New episode drop! Laura Nicol chats with Annie Liao 🇦🇺, founder and CEO of Build Club. What began as a weekend AI project among friends has now evolved into APAC’s largest AI learning platform (...and it's just getting started). Fresh off closing her pre-seed round and going all-in on Build Club, Annie shares what’s next for her and her team (👀 Tom McKenzie). In today’s episode, we discuss: 🪄 Annie’s early career journey as a data scientist, consultant, venture capitalist, community builder, operator, and startup founder—and the lessons she gained from each transition 🪄 A nod to her recent crowning: Forbes Australia 30 Under 30 🪄 Scaling the impact of why Build Club started: to empower everyone to build their dreams into reality 🪄 Build Club’s internal AI strategy and approach to building 🪄 Why providing clarity is the most valuable role a founder can play 🪄 Taking a leap of faith to build custom GPTs (a beginner's guide) 🪄 The rise of AI workforce manager roles—and why operators are uniquely suited for this shift And, of course, I ask the “stupid” questions to help us all accelerate our AI learning journey 🫶 Listen and subscribe on Spotify, Apple, or by typing callingoperator [dot] com. Episode links in the comments. 〰️〰️〰️ A note to our listeners from Laura Nicol 💌 Balancing my role as Chief of Staff with producing this podcast is no small feat! Each fortnightly episode is a leap of faith, but I’m creating from the heart, stepping out of my comfort zone, and embracing the journey to create meaningful conversations at the operator level within our ecosystem. I would love your feedback. What do you enjoy about the podcast? What can I do to make it "10% better"? #CallingOperator #AI #AIlearning #startups #techoperator

"We want to create the next wave of AI, not just ride it." Those, my friends, are the words of Annie Liao 🇦🇺. At just 23, she earned a spot in Forbes Australia's 30 Under 30 list— sitting alongside engineers tackling loneliness, one of the fastest drivers on the F1 grid, and a double-gold Paris Olympian. She's also one of the most mentioned 'operators to watch' on the Calling Operator podcast. ...and she’s just getting started. Her V2 Build Club mission—to create the ‘Duolingo for AI learning’—has investors excited, and with the close of her $1.75 million pre-seed raise, it's time to go back to building. Catch Tuesday's episode of Calling Operator to hear Annie's journey stepping into her role as full-time CEO, building her early team, and leaning into the "hard work" of leading an AI-first company. On behalf of the startup ecosystem: We're ALL cheering for you, Annie!

When we asked 👋 Deena Metz which operators she admires most, two names rose to the top: 📞 Zoe Champtaloup Director of Operations and General Counsel at Perx Health. “She's a 10 out of 10—the best combination of wickedly clever and strategic, but also genuinely a good person and totally humble about how amazing she is. I loved working with her at Perx. She was one of the main reasons I wanted to stay. I remember thinking, 'Can we just be best work friends forever?' and we still catch up. I think she's the first person I added on Slack Connect when I started at Flagship. She's the brain trust at Perx and has built an incredibly successful career for herself there. I'm excited to see where she goes with things, and I'll keep a keen eye on her journey.” 📞 Jackie Rotman Director, Strategy at OakNorth. "A good friend who lives in London now—Jackie Rotman. She works at a massive FinTech startup in a chief-of-staff-strategic-operational-type role. She's a weapon. She's my go-to if I need to run anything past anyone." The latest episode of Calling Operator is here, featuring 👋 Deena Metz. Tune into her operator story wherever you get your podcasts. #CallingOperator #customersuccess #sales #startups #techoperator

☎️ New episode drop! Laura Nicol chats with 👋 Deena Metz, Head of Customer Success at Flagship. For Deena, being at the nexus of a company is where she thrives, so she’s placed herself at the heart of an early-stage startup: customer success. She’s one of 12 employees, building alongside Simon Molnar to establish Flagship as the backbone of retail operations in Australia, the US, and beyond. In today’s episode, we discuss: 🌀 Deena’s childhood dream of playing soccer for the Matildas 🌀 How an internship in New York launched her career in digital health at ANDHealth and Perx Health 🌀 Joining Flagship as the first female on the team and her approach to building the company's post-sales function and customer experience 🌀 Partnering with retail brands to raise the bar in visual merchandising and bring more data to brick-and-mortar stores 🌀 Why CS is a team sport, and how sales, post-sales, and product teams need to be “Batman to each other’s Batman” 🌀 And the refreshing reminder: “We’re not saving lives” Listen and subscribe on Spotify, Apple, or by typing callingoperator [dot] com. Episode links in the comments. 〰️〰️〰️ A note to our listeners from Laura Nicol 💌 Balancing my role as Chief of Staff with producing this podcast is no small feat! Each fortnightly episode is a leap of faith, but I’m creating from the heart, stepping out of my comfort zone, and embracing the journey to create meaningful conversations at the operator level within our ecosystem. I would love your feedback. What do you enjoy about the podcast? What can I do to make it "10% better"? #CallingOperator #customersuccess #sales #startups #techoperator

"I found that transitioning from healthcare to payments identity, although at face value they seemed like very different industries, the fact that you're working in a highly regulated space with many constraints is synonymous across the two." Dr Jackie Rabec (Product Manager at Google) and I couldn’t help but laugh about how liberating it might be to manage product in a less-regulated space. But truth be told, that very challenge is likely her secret sauce. In our latest episode of Calling Operator, we chatted about all things product and building an interesting, wide-ranging and expansive life. Here are some key takeaways: 1. Don’t overcomplicate it There’s a tendency to overcomplicate and over-framework product development. Instead, Jackie advises focusing on three fundamentals (then applying frameworks as needed): - What problem are we solving? - Who’s the end user? Who are the key decision-makers? What are the incentives at play? - Is this commercially viable? 2. Orchestrating people, teams, and tools Think of your role as a conductor of an orchestra. You have a host of instruments—people, tools, processes—and your job is to ensure they all play in harmony. 3. Building a product 0-1 Jackie’s journey at Heidi Health is a true zero-to-one experience. She gained exposure across the entire product lifecycle—taking ownership of multiple functions, finding product-market fit, scaling, and eventually assembling the team. What. A. Dream. 4. Switching between the balcony and the dance floor Leadership in startups requires elevating yourself to the balcony—guiding the team and providing frameworks to help them operate autonomously—and knowing when to descend into the weeds of execution (the dance floor). The skill lies in choosing the right moments to switch between these two modes. 5. Adjusting from a small team to hundreds of thousands of employees at Google With so many stakeholders to align, how you communicate—especially around trade-offs and prioritisation—becomes even more important. From being the first PM to one of many at Google, Jackie’s learning to leverage the diverse skill sets around her, ask the right questions and move away from trying to solve everything independently. My take: As we run toward big 0-1 or 1-10 challenges, communication is the glue that holds everything together. Learning to be a strong communicator and how to influence at all levels—up, down, and sideways—could be the #1 skill in your operator toolkit. Huge thanks to Jackie for being a dream guest 🌻 Listen to the full conversation and follow on Spotify, Apple, or by typing callingoperator [dot] com—episode links in the comments.

I would love listener feedback 😍

☎️ New episode drop! Laura Nicol chats with Dr Jackie Rabec, Product Manager at Google. Jackie’s product leadership story is all about transitions—from corners of the globe to non-linear career paths and reframing impact beyond just our work. In our conversation, we discuss: 🌸 The importance of “doing your homework” 🌸 Growing up in South Africa and following her mother’s path into medicine 🌸 Definitive decision-making versus directional decision-making and how it guided her transition from medicine to tech and product 🌸 Visualising your career as a pond of lily pads 🌸 Her journey from being the first PM at Heidi Health to a non-health tech product role at Google 🌸 Moving from the balcony to the dance floor and back again as a product leader 🌸 Lessons from transitioning from a 40-person startup to a global corporation 🌸 How to avoid overcomplicating product by indexing on three things 🌸 Her vision to improve healthcare access and delivery in low-income countries and under-resourced communities in countries like Africa. Listen and subscribe on Spotify, Apple, or by typing callingoperator [dot] com. Episode links in the comments. 〰️〰️〰️ A note to our listeners from Laura Nicol 💌 Balancing my role as Chief of Staff for a mighty ambitious executive with producing and editing this podcast is no small feat. I have so much to learn, but I’m creating from the heart, stepping out of my comfort zone, and embracing discomfort every fortnight to create meaningful conversations at the operator level within our ecosystem. I would love feedback. Please share what you enjoy about the podcast and any "10% better" ideas to help me see around corners. Your input means the world!

Success hits differently when you realise that the leaders you admire are ordinary humans—just like you and me. Dr Jackie Rabec is a (sunshine in human form) product leader who sees her career as a pond of lily pads. From clinical medicine in South Africa to becoming the first PM at an early-stage startup (Heidi Health) to PM at Google, each leap was guided by directional values that helped inform her next move. On Tuesday, I'm excited to share her raw and honest operator story and tactical takeaways on product leadership via my podcast, Calling Operator. Go, Jackie! Linky links to the podcast below so you can subscribe, follow along, or share with anyone in your circle making a career transition into product or tech ⬇️

🚨 New episode drop! Laura Nicol chats with George Hatzis, a fractional product designer for early-stage teams, including Matilda, Neurode and more. From his early curiosity about design and product at Ignition to redesigning a personal loan application admin at Wisr and building and scaling a multi-brand design system for healthcare products at Eucalyptus, he's no stranger to the twists and turns of startups and scale-ups. In this episode, we cover: 👨🎨 Practical design and MVP design systems—what they are and how to apply them in fast-moving, scrappy environments 👨🎨 Leading design teams and making a conscious transition from an individual contributor to a manager 👨🎨 Taking the independent product design route and his Mary Poppins-style approach to fractional work 👨🎨 His journey (so far) building a migration tech product alongside Niamh Mooney and Damian Png at Matilda 👨🎨 AI as a “companion piece” for designers 👨🎨 The right time for startups to bring in their first product designer Plus, slowing everything down for life's simple moments (insert grass and sleep), watching 100 movies a year (and reviewing them on Letterboxd), and the magic of acknowledging trade-offs. Link to our full conversation in the comments. Let us know what you think!

🚨 Special episode! Laura Nicol chats with Maxine Minter about executive coaching and what high performance looks like for operators. Planning season is upon us, and coaching and mentoring leapfrogging someone's career trajectory has been a key theme percolating through our recent episodes. Recognising that having a coach is a privilege and uncommon at the operator level in the ANZ ecosystem, this is a special episode to open source some thoughts, guidance and frameworks. You'll walk away as the CEO of your career with many tactical tools and exercises to help you become a high-impact, high-performing startup operator. Here's a sneak peek: 🦉 (Really though….) It's productive for you to spend time resting, recharging, increasing the leverage that you work at and skilling up. 🦉 Your learning journey is (sadly) not a download your next skill set and then perform situation. Predicting where you think the company or market is going over time and pre-investing in your development journey is productive, so you're ready to hit the ground running when you spot those big game-day opportunities. 🦉 There are repeatable stages of growing a business through rapid growth, and you don't have to (re)solve them from scratch. Many people have watched that playbook before. Accelerating yourself looks like finding people around you who've seen one or two stages ahead of you before you need them—a coach, community, advisor, whoever it is—so you can shortcut your organisation. ^^ #3 seems like a fairly obvious takeaway in hindsight, but one that senior leaders often forget. Link to our full conversation in the comments. Let us know what you think!