Edwina Johnson - Building and Leading Teams Without Having Functional Expertise

We often believe that we need to have functional expertise to lead others but in my experience, that’s not true. We can lead without having discipline expertise – something Edwina Johnson knows well from her time as COO of Fintech startup Alloy where she built and managed a team with broad expertise. Edwina has been a longtime client, I was happy she agreed to share what she’s learned. 

Our conversation highlighted just how strong COOs are at working cross-functionally across an organization. Edwina – like the best of them – understands how to drive alignment around a common goal without using positional authority. There are so many lessons about collaboration and leading without functional expertise in this interview. I hope you enjoy Edwina’s wisdom as much as I did. 

It’s great to see you today literally. I’m trying to remember the last time I saw your face. (I coach with the video turned off.)

It is a little surreal, yeah. Thanks for having me on.

For those who don't know you, can you introduce yourself?

I’m Edwina and right now I lead global expansion at Alloy. Generally, I'm a bit of a business builder, either as an early employee, as a founder, investor, or advisor, working with startups, or accelerator programs. I love that kind of challenge of growth and figuring out how to scale the business.

I joined Alloy in the very early days when we were just six people. As COO, I worked alongside the three founders to grow the business through Series C and our initial unicorn valuation before moving back to the UK to head up our global expansion strategy. 

I have to ask one of my favorite questions. When you started your career was being in a C-Suite role something you aspired to?

No. When I first started my career it was mainly about “how can I make money and leave my parent’s home as quickly as possible?” And then you figure it out from there. I think even the concept of “Do you want to be a leader?” wasn’t necessarily something I was thinking about in the early days of my career. Although I do naturally tend towards organisation, and that often involves organising other people, which I think is a leadership quality. So that's probably what happened a little bit from the beginning anyway.

I relate to that. As you know, becoming a COO was a surprise to me. At what point did you begin to think more about a formal leadership role? 

It had more to do with the type of work that I got to do within that role and that position, more than wanting leadership, power, visibility, or those kinds of things. The opportunities that came up to take leadership roles allowed me to work on more interesting and meaty problems and work with different people. Those are the things that got me excited and made me want to take those roles.

There’s this myth that people who are in C-suite roles want them for power or control. Some might but there are so many like you who are interested in the work or the impact rather than for more control.

Yeah. Exactly that.

When I joined, everyone was in product, engineering, or sales which meant that I picked up anything else in between. I got stuck in across the business and that’s how I shaped the COO role. I did anything that enabled or multiplied the output of the rest of the business. I was focused on how to scale the business. 

How did your role at Alloy come about? What was the leadership team like when you joined?

There were founding members. Most of the folks were in product and engineering. One of the founders was focused on sales and they needed help. They’d had a COO or operations person before so they know the value of the work and the role. This was good because it’s hard to prioritize hiring a COO when you’re an early-stage business. Most don’t start thinking about it until things stop working. 

I'd met the founders of Alloy and was able to work with them through the startup accelerator I was running. I got to know them as individuals. I was impressed by their mission and vision, their values, and how they operated. I saw that they were strong founders and heard they were hiring for operations. And I thought, “Oh, maybe this is a good fit.” The interview involved workshopping a problem they were having around getting clients live. I helped map out the customer journey on a whiteboard – what are the friction points, what are the opportunities – pulling out the process and thinking about how we could scale it. It was fun. It brought the core value of business ops to life a bit. 

When I joined, everyone was in product, engineering, or sales which meant that I picked up anything else in between. I got stuck in across the business and that’s how I shaped the COO role. I did anything that enabled or multiplied the output of the rest of the business. I was focused on how to scale the business. 

I’ve seen that too. Not every startup sees the value of a COO or organizational work early on. Sometimes they wait quite late which leads to a lot of operational debt. People don’t necessarily understand how soon they want to bring in an operational leader rather than an operations manager. 

Right. Exactly. Sometimes because you're not producing lines of code or revenue from a sales contract the work can be overlooked or undervalued. As you said, it can lead to operational debt.

What areas were you responsible for?

The functions that I built and led included our finance team to series B, our people team, legal, compliance, our key data partnerships, strategic partners for our platform to function, and business operations. At the leadership level, I was focused on company strategy and organizational design. Particularly with BizOps, which is super cross-functional, I looked at how the whole company was functioning, and how to put it together. I helped think about OKRs and measurement frameworks from the company strategy. How was that rolled out? How are people executing against it? How are they working together or not? Where are the problems or the opportunities coming up? So it's always been a cross-company, cross-functional role.

That’s quite a breadth of functions. When you came into the role, did you expect that you would have that breadth of roles or functions underneath you?

We didn’t think about biz ops formally as a function until a much later stage of business but the work existed from the start. So some of the work was pulling out the work that’s being done. Thinking about whether we need experts, whether it serves to be a function, and what we need to hire for and train. 

It was a bit fuzzy in some areas. Did I expect to manage the finance, people, and legal compliance areas? I think so. Though as a relative newcomer to the States having to figure out the healthcare system and finance tax system was somewhat intimidating. 

Yeah, operating in the States is so complex because it’s state-by-state. 

Yeah, exactly. It was a lot. When I joined we were a small team. We worked out of this terrible office in Bushwick above a metal welding factory with four or five guys and a pit bull. (Walking up) I wondered, “What have I gotten myself into?” That was probably more my overriding thinking then.

Right. Sometimes we get in the role and don't know what it will be. Sometimes it grows in ways we don’t expect. 

Yeah, certainly when we're trying to sell to banks in Connecticut we needed to paint  a different visual at that point!

It’s also a reality for startups. They’re scrappy. In early startup stages, C-Suite roles can be quite different from the later stage. They evolve. 

Yeah. The biggest when I first arrived was our CEO obsessing over office desks. I was like, what are you doing? I'm just going to make this decision for you, get it done, and you're going to think about something else. This is such a waste of time.

Yep, I’ve seen that before, especially when there are operational gaps. CEOs can get kind of overwhelmed and get fixated on the small things. They need a strong operational leader so they can focus on culture, strategy, or customers. What were the areas you felt most comfortable and least comfortable in hiring? 

None of them I felt particularly confident or comfortable hiring in because as a COO you often feel a little bit like a jack-of-all-trade. So the inner self-doubt sets in – who am I to hire an expert who knows this discipline inside and out? I don’t want someone who I’m going to have to teach this to, I want someone better than me. That’s always slightly daunting at first, especially legal or compliance. 

I bet. Fintech is a whole different world with compliance and all the legal. It’s complicated

Yep. It is. Alloy is lucky that we’re not financially regulated but we have to abide by certain restrictions and meet certain requirements that our financial clients who are regulated have to meet. So we had to build out this super deep infosec and compliance side of things in a robust way.

How did you hire with confidence for roles where you didn’t have expertise? 

As soon as we thought we’d need to break this out into a separate function I’d talk with people who had these roles at other businesses to learn from them. I wanted to find out what they do, the skills they need, the strengths they have, and the background they came from. Digging into their day-to-day work and their skill profile was helpful, especially if it was the first hire. Then we’d put together a job description, get that out in the market, start talking to candidates, and see resumes, and CVs coming through. Then we’d analyse who we were getting. We’d update the job description or we’d change where we’re sourcing. That kind of data gathering and revising helped make us feel more confident. 

As a leader, you bring inspiration, strategy, and direction. You help troubleshoot the big things and help them prioritize. You don’t need to be an expert in a particular discipline to do that.

Your analytical approach is powerful. Looking at data and frameworks can help when you are familiar with an area of business.

Yeah, it's my approach. It gives me more confidence that I’ll end up with a more robust hire than going on your gut when you literally have no experience. Though before we had the function there would be myself or others in the organization doing IC so it gave some insight into what was needed on a day-to-day basis.

What is pretty clear about the priority of what areas to hire in?

No, it wasn’t necessarily clear. The learning for me is trying to spot where to hire sooner. It’s also teasing out how senior to high and resourcing it appropriately. Bringing in our Director of People at Series A, who’s been fantastic, helped us scale the business. I think it’s unusual to bring in a director of people but emphasizing people within the company has paid off. To a large extent, I would always recommend doing that. 

Yep, I’ve seen that happen a lot. Companies don’t always invest in people leaders soon enough. They pay for it later, so you all made a wise investment. Was that something you discussed as a leadership team? 

Yes, there was a level of leadership level awareness and conversation – the founding team really value people, culture, and values. So it was evident to all of us as a good decision.

How was it managing people in areas of expertise where you didn’t have experience? What was that like?

It was a source of anxiety and fear – what am I going to bring to the table? You know, I'm not a lawyer. I don't know. I'm not a trained finance professional. How will I know how to manage these people and help them and support them? I think we probably worked on this a lot at the time. I had to understand what I bring to them as a manager and a leader. People will thrive with good management. You can enable them to grow and help them succeed with really strong management, personal development, and growth. 

As a leader, you bring inspiration, strategy, and direction. You help troubleshoot the big things and help them prioritize. You don’t need to be an expert in a particular discipline to do that. 

Feeling confident in those things and seeing how the folks I managed were successful gave me more confidence. That’s not to diminish the need for expertise or learning from someone who knows the discipline. When I didn’t have the expertise, I connected with peers or mentors who did have experience in the actual discipline.

Working cross-functionally means you’re engaging with people who don’t report to you, and who have no requirements to do the work that you're asking of them. What's more, they have requirements that other people are asking of them, that they’re incentivized to achieve. The work that you're asking for is not a priority. That means that when you're trying to get something done, you have to work to get buy-in. You have to get them excited to work on it. You have to get them feeling like a team they’re committed to, that others are relying on them. You have to hold them accountable and drive them in a way that a direct manager can. It has to be done in a softer way to get change to happen.

That’s a strong way to grow your knowledge. It’s also great that you call out the work outside of functional expertise. Being able to prioritize, and have conversations – is just as important. 

Yeah. Navigating the organisation, understanding the vision, how to frame propositions and strategic prioritisation are important. 

You were able to recognize the value you added. And not having functional expertise leads you to focus on other things. Let’s say you have experience in finance. You might only focus on the finance aspects of the role. We might ignore helping them grow in other areas. Later they might struggle because the focus was on functional expertise rather than other people and organisational skills. 

Yeah, absolutely.

Both sides are so important. There are pros and cons for each.

Yeah. But I think if you're going to be successful and progress in an organization, there's so much outside of just knowing the particular discipline that you need to be aware of, to know how to navigate, and how to think about – how do I build out a team? How do I resource that? How do I justify it? There are so many little things beyond, can I put together an accounting plan or whatever the actual specific discipline requires?

What was hardest about leading a cross-functional team?

Working from a business operations view there are a lot of cross-functional pieces that the team is often called in when there’s friction across multiple teams. With my global hat on right now, we’re doing a centralized expansion. All of the functions in the core business are responsible for our global expansion, which means I have to work with all the different functions leads and their teams to be successful. 

Working cross-functionally means you’re engaging with people who don’t report to you, and who have no requirements to do the work that you're asking of them. What's more, they have requirements that other people are asking of them, that they’re incentivized to achieve. The work that you're asking for is not a priority. That means that when you're trying to get something done, you have to work to get buy-in. You have to get them excited to work on it. You have to get them feeling like a team they’re committed to, that others are relying on them. You have to hold them accountable and drive them in a way that a direct manager can. It has to be done in a softer way to get change to happen.

What did you find rewarding about leading this kind of team?

You get to work on cool problems. They have a big business impact because lots of teams need to be involved to fix something or to make something new happen. So that’s really fun. You get to work with people that you wouldn't necessarily work with on a day-to-day basis. You understand their perspective and learn from them. So that's really cool as well. 

What advice might you give to others who find themselves leading areas where they don’t have functional expertise?

Don't beat yourself up too much or get too caught up in the fact that you don't have functional expertise. Understand where you do have strengths as a manager, as a leader, where you understand the organization, where you understand the strategy, how you understand people and working with people and getting the best out of them as an individual. Lean into that side of it.

What’s one thing you’ve learned about yourself along this journey that surprised you?

You can figure out most stuff and get stuff done you’re resourceful, ask for help and you’re transparent about what’s happening. I think if I’d laid out the full potential job description when thinking about joining Alloy I probably would have been too intimidated to go for it. But it’s actually fine. You figure it out and you work out how to get it done. 

It sounds like knowing the shape helped you be more open to the role.

Yeah, absolutely.

Don't beat yourself up too much or get too caught up in the fact that you don't have functional expertise. Understand where you do have strengths as a manager, as a leader, where you understand the organization, where you understand the strategy, how you understand people and working with people and getting the best out of them as an individual. Lean into that side of it.

Is there anything about being a COO leading folks in other disciplines that we haven’t covered?

I think the COO role is super interesting because it can take on so many different flavors within different organizations, (even organizations that value COOs and see the benefit). Quite often it can be very like actual operations and logistics of the business itself. The real opportunity of the role of the COO is to give you the ability to have somebody who can sit as a neutral party across different functions and different perspectives, particularly in the C-suite. Any leader comes to the table and comes to the discussion often with their function hat on promoting the priorities that are relevant to their area. 

With the COO, given the remit of taking a company-wide and organisational-wide view, then you have somebody who is a neutral party that's working alongside the CEO. They bring a business-wide mindset of what's best for the business and best for the people on the team.

Was that organizational piece – thinking about the whole entity – something that came naturally or something you had to work at?

Yeah, I was keen to join a company where I could almost come in as a secondary founder. I wanted to feel like I had ownership and feel like I was building a business alongside the founders without being one. So I think I naturally took that perspective. But it was only through doing the role that I understood the kind of impact you can have to facilitate the rest of the business within the COO hat. And then over time, learning about the importance of the alignment of the whole company that stems from organisational oversight.