Jocelyn Fennewald's 'winding path' of a career began in school where her passion for science led her to wanting to pursue a PhD in Science. She made a few jumps between science and finance before her current co-founder Machell Enke invited her to Chicago where she joined an IT company as a Financial Analyst.

She spent about three years working with Salesforce, and helping build the back end operations process gave her a great sense of accomplishment. It wasn’t until she attended a Dreamforce event in 2013 and heard the question - "What would you do if you weren’t afraid?" - which led her and Machell to think 'What would they do?' - and they decided to start their own Salesforce company - OpMentors.

Jocelyn highlights the importance of how big a barrier the 'fear of failure' can be when deciding to start your own company, and how the whole Trailhead ecosystem allows for a greater sense of stability whilst learning, hence reducing the risk drastically as compared to other work sectors.

She describes how a COO can really become the person that hold's the whole organization together. How by simply learning to listen, more than talking and reacting is an integral trait of a leader. How by making time and space to just ideate and discuss with your colleagues and work staff can make you the 'think tank' of an organisation. Whatever the agenda, simply providing a safe space where people can come talk, and be heard can help nurture the growth of an organisation in more than one ways.

Being a woman in this ecosystem, Jocelyn shares her experiences and reflects on the importance of the local ohana. It is in this ecosystem where she first learnt that these local communities were much more than just networking opportunities. They are not just seminars to help you get jobs or sell your product, they are platforms to make genuine connections.

What exactly is the role of a Chief Operating Officer and what exactly fall under the purview of Operations in a tech startup. Listen to find out as we learn from our guest on this episode - Jocelyn Fennewald.

Books mentioned -
Extreme Ownership

Jocelyn's LinkedIn
Jocelyn's Twitter

The episode is PART I of the COO series sponsored by SharinPix.

SharinPix gets all the features, components, tools and integrations you need when you have images requirements in your Salesforce implementation.