Hey there,
Ever notice how buildings feel different during the holidays, quieter in some places and suddenly hectic in others? With staffing stretched thin and systems under extra strain, a clear calendar for cleaning, security, and HVAC can keep operations steady while you use the lull for maintenance that is hard to schedule any other time.
Take a moment to see how a simple holiday plan can make the season feel far less reactive.
In this issue:
Playbook of the Day
A 2026 Operations Control & Defense Run
Goal: Make operations a daily checkpoint where COOs see how workflows, data, and partners support growth, risk, and client needs, not just costs.
Who: COO or Head of Operations plus leads from trading or portfolio support, risk, technology, and client service, meeting at the same time each day or week.
Before the debrief (3 mins):
Each lead writes 2–3 points on major breaks, real‑time processing issues, data or reporting problems, and any vendor incidents.
The host scans for repeated manual fixes, slow systems, unclear data ownership, or compliance checks happening too late.
During the 15 minutes:
Today in 5 Minutes: Identify one visibility gap, one process needing better automation, and one issue with unclear data ownership or standards.
Risks in 3 Minutes: Identify one key resilience or cyber risk in a critical service and assign a clear owner with responsibility.
Tomorrow in 2 Minutes: Identify 2–3 small follow‑up actions on systems, partners, skills, or compliance to advance real‑time, data‑driven operations.
Rules: Do not redesign the whole operating model here; use this time to keep a shared view of operations and steadily replace manual, fragmented work with more integrated and reliable workflows that support the firm’s goals.
Latest News
🤖 2026 COO Intel: Payroll Drives Labor
Published: 03/23/2026
Jessica Zhang from ADP says payroll provides key data for governance, risk, and planning. ADP research shows payroll teams now handle analytics and compliance despite data issues. In Asia-Pacific, 80% of leaders face regulatory problems, and 71% get penalties. Companies use global standards with local adjustments through technology.
Upside: COOs get a concrete plan to use dashboards, AI, and improved workflows to gain clearer visibility, reduce mistakes, and scale operations more smoothly.
Impact: The COO’s job shifts toward designing how operations work end to end so that daily activities generate insight and advantage, not just costs.
🏢 Why AI-Based ETFs Matter for COOs
Published: 03/23/2026
The article explains that Vanguard’s Information Technology ETF (VGT) is not ideal for AI exposure because it excludes major AI and cloud companies like Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Tesla, and is heavily concentrated in a few holdings such as Nvidia, Apple, and Microsoft. It instead recommends the Invesco Nasdaq 100 ETF (QQQM), which tracks the Nasdaq‑100 and includes most leading tech and AI players, giving broader coverage of the firms building and operating core AI and cloud infrastructure.
Upside: COOs who want their organization’s investments to better reflect the AI ecosystem can use a vehicle like QQQM to gain diversified exposure to hyperscalers, chipmakers, and platform companies that underpin modern AI tools and data infrastructure.
Impact: Choosing AI‑aligned ETFs helps COOs and finance leaders ensure that long‑term capital allocation is more closely tied to the technologies and vendors that support operations intelligence, automation, and analytics.
📄 2026 Operations as Control & Defense
Published: 02/24/2026
Asset management operations are moving from a back‑office expense to a strategic engine for growth, risk control, and client experience. COOs are expected to run operations as a control & defense with end‑to‑end visibility, real‑time processing, clear data ownership, and tightly aligned people, systems, and partners so that compliance, resilience, and cyber readiness are built into daily work.
Upside: COOs gain a practical roadmap for turning operations into an information packed environment along with the integration of dashboards, AI-supported tools and streamlined workflows that sharpen visibility, minimize failure points and support growth without the constant need to mitigate issues.
Impact: The COO role expands from maintaining current systems to actively shaping the operating model, using data, structure and governance to turn daily operations into a sustained source of intelligence, differentiation, and resilience.
Prompt of the Day
The COO Risk Radar Prompt
Trigger Event | Action | Use Case Example |
|---|---|---|
Start of the week. | Key projects, timelines, and top-line metrics. | Short list of near-term risks and who or what they affect. |
Before leadership/ops sync. | Agenda, open issues, and dependency list. | Risks to spotlight in the meeting and questions to ask your leads. |
When a project feels “wobbly.” | Brief status, blockers, and cross-team dependencies. | Clear view of failure modes and immediate mitigation ideas. |
After a surprising incident. | What happened, the impact, and how it was handled. | Root-cause themes and next steps to prevent repeats. |
Month-end / quarter-end planning. | Upcoming milestones and resource constraints. | Risk map for the next 30 days and 2–3 actions to de-risk the plan. |
Prompt
“Act as my risk radar. Based on this snapshot of our current projects, metrics, and team updates, (1) flag the top 3 operational or execution risks for the next 30 days, (2) show me early warning signals to watch this week, and (3) suggest 2–3 concrete mitigation steps I can assign today.”
Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.
One last Thing
Holiday operations can be a strategic window, not just a survival exercise. Getting ahead of schedules, vendors, and safety checks can cut overtime, reduce incidents, and improve the day-to-day experience for anyone still in the building.
The best work often happens when nobody is watching, and this is one of those moments.
Until next edition,
Chloe Rivers
Editor-in-Chief
COO Intelligence
P.S. Interested in sponsoring a future issue? Just reply to this email and I’ll send packages!