Hey there,
Have you heard that defense contractors are being redrawn by activists, while chip plants are propped up by states mid-crisis, and Wall Street is quietly rewriting the COO role?
If you sit anywhere near operations or intelligence, these aren’t pleasurable news. These are early warning signals about control, resilience, and governance.
Learn these updated strategies to regain control over systems, and boundaries.
In this issue:
Playbook of the Day
A 15-Minute Defense Activism & Governance Debrief
Goal: Upgrade today’s Indra–Third Point–Escribano developments into concise, actionable signals on capital, control, and conflict-of-interest risk for tomorrow.
Who: COO/Head of Ops, plus leads for Capital/IR, Governance & Risk, Strategic M&A, and Geo/Regulatory Intelligence; same time daily.
Before the debrief (3 mins):
Each lead adds 2–3 bullets to a shared doc: progress today (stakes, letters, board signals), where conflicts & concerns surfaced, and any new signals from the state holding company Sepi.
Host skims and highlights anything related to Third Point’s stake, EM&E acquisition risks, or shareholder tensions.
During the 15 minutes:
Today in 60 Seconds (4 mins): Each lead surfaces one standout market move, one governance or conflict concern, and one key metric from the day’s defense tape.
Risks for Tomorrow (6 mins): Scan items linked to activist pressure, state ownership, or related-party deals and lock in one mitigation step with a named owner per item.
Plan for Tomorrow (3 mins): The host summarizes the few critical follow-ups correlated to Indra and EM&E-type situations and confirms who must deliver each next step.
Rules: No strategy rewrites in this meeting, no new side projects, keep it tied to today’s actual signals (activist letters, state-holder behavior, governance tension) and tomorrow’s concrete plan (who watches what, who calls whom, what progress).
Latest News
⚙️Third Point: Stake in Indra Defense Strat
Published: 02/17/2026
Reuters reports U.S. hedge fund Third Point, led by CEO Dan Loeb, has acquired a stake in Spanish defense firm Indra Sistemas SA (IDR.MC) and backs chairman Ángel Escribano's plan to buy smaller rival Escribano Mechanical & Engineering (EM&E), owned by Escribano and his brother Javier, despite shareholder concerns over conflicts, SEPI holds Madrid's 28% stake. Loeb's letter to Indra's board and SEPI hails the deal as a unique opportunity.
Upside: Competent COOs in intelligence operations gain strategic insight to leverage activist investors for bold M&A amid conflicts, consolidate rivals into national champions, and align stakeholders with growth strategies that changes tension into scaled defense leadership.
Impact: Transforms shareholder stress into strategic engines stabilizing value amidst recent volatility, as Indra emulates to build stakeholder trust, speed consolidation ROI, and thrive as agile operators in defense-driven markets.
🔧 Nexperia’s $60M State Loan Amid Issue
Published: 02/17/26
Dutch state lender Invest International extending chipmaker Nexperia, a Wingtech (China) unit, and a $60 million loan for global production investments to boost output, modernize lines, and lift efficiency despite a Dutch court probe into mismanagement and last year's state-forced European management swap that sparked supply chaos for auto chips and investor flight. A spokesperson welcomed the non-distress funding to preserve reserves with more talks underway.
Upside: COOs in intelligence ops are provided with leverage for tapping state capital amidst geopolitical friction, management overhauls, and supply shocks using targeted loans to fortify production without draining liquidity or waiting buy-ins.
Impact: COOs can mirror this workflow to pre-empt crisis escalation, blending state aid with efficiency upgrades for resilient operations that stabilize critical chains, dodge distress signals, and scale amidst hybrid ownership potential risks.
🧠 JPMorgan CIB Names New AI Strat COO
Published: 02/16/2026
The Digital Banker reports that JPMorgan Chase has named veteran Guy Halamish as COO of its commercial and investment bank to drive AI and data integration across operations that generate half of the firm’s net income, with CIB co-heads Doug Petno and Troy Rohrbaugh mandating business-specific chief data officers in dual-reporting lines to embed analytics, governance into daily workflows.
Upside: COOs in intelligence ops gain playbook for repositioning COO as AI orchestrator over siloed tech, using matrix reporting to fuse data platforms with business realities, and prioritizing AI that unlocks value from existing reserves.
Impact: Converts tech spend into embedded operational advantages securing margins in rivalry, as CIB fosters alignment, hastens AI workflow ROI amidst their $18B investments, and dominates as data-centric leaders in the sector worldwide.
Prompt of the Day
Defense, Funding, and AI Ops Risk Radar
Trigger Event | Action | Use Case Example |
|---|---|---|
Start of the week. | Scan key defence, chip, and bank moves. | One list of Indra–Third Point, Nexperia, and JPMorgan shifts to track. |
Before leadership/ops sync. | Capture top governance and capital risks. | 2–3 talking points on conflicts, probes, and AI-org changes. |
When a project feels unstable. | Note exposure and weak spots. | Snapshot of where activism, state action, or AI gaps raise risk. |
After a surprising incident. | Log what happened and first response. | One line on the shock plus the immediate fix or owner. |
New activist, state, or AI headline. | Run a 15-minute risk debrief. | Short risk map with 2–3 concrete moves. |
Prompt
“Act as my defense & AI news risk radar. Using this snapshot of Indra-style activism, Nexperia-style funding stress, and JPMorgan-style AI/COO shifts, (1) flag the top 3 risks these moves create for our projects in the next 30 days, (2) show me early warning signals to watch this week across governance, capital, and AI operations, and (3) suggest 2–3 concrete mitigation steps I can assign today to specific owners.”
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
One last thing
The pattern across Indra, Nexperia, and JPMorgan is simple: the wisest are the COOs who treat news as inputs to an operating model.
Build the personal habit of translating every activist stake, state loan, and AI appointment into one concrete adjustment instead of siloed changes.
Then use these in how you govern risk, allocate capital, or wire AI into the workflow.
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!