2nd in Command Archives

Beyond Bulletproof Coffee: Lessons on Leadership and Startup Growth

Editor’s note: Anna left Bulletproof in 2019 shortly after she appeared on the Second in Command Podcast. When Anna Collins joined the nutrition company Bulletproof as president and COO in 2017, the business had recently expanded its ecommerce operation to...

Zendesk’s COO Has a Unique Strategy For Encouraging Collaboration

You might think an executive with an IT background could easily drop into any company to serve its information technology needs. But spend a few moments with Tom Keiser, COO of cloud-based help desk company Zendesk, and you’ll discover it takes more than simply...

How Bumble Encourages Kind Connections Around the World, and Inside the Company, Too

Sarah Jones Simmer’s career started at a hedge fund in Los Angeles. But while she loves investing, there’s something about business growth that got her thinking beyond just the numbers. “I love thinking about what makes businesses grow and succeed,...

From the Board Room to the Baseball Diamond: How Brian Barren Took Corporate Process Development to the MLB

Working for a Major League Baseball team might seem like the pinnacle of big business for some. And Brian Barren certainly has the background to take on that challenge: He led multifunctional business teams across a dozen of Procter & Gamble’s brands for 24...

How a Serial Entrepreneur Unexpectedly Became the COO of Elite Leadership Group YPO

Sean Magennis is a lifelong entrepreneur. In the early 1990s, he started a business consulting firm and an executive search business that has served clients across the United States, Canada, and Mexico. But, as I quickly discovered in our conversation for the Second...