Chief Operating Officer (COO)

This is the charter for TechAbout's Chief Operating Officer (COO). It defines what the role owns, decides, and is measured on. It is written for everyone at TechAbout, and for clients and candidates who want to understand how we run the business.

Mandate

The COO turns strategy into reliable, repeatable execution and runs the day-to-day operation of TechAbout. Where the CEO sets direction, the COO makes the machine run: client work ships on time and to standard, our own products and brands keep moving, teams are staffed and unblocked, and the back office — admin, tooling, and vendors — simply works. The COO owns the answer to a single blunt question: will we deliver what we promised, well, this week and this quarter?

Core Responsibilities

• Delivery. Own end-to-end delivery of client engagements (web design and development, SEO, link building and guest posts, cybersecurity, graphic and brand design, and Express marketplace work) and of TechAbout's own products, domains, and digital assets.
• Process and operational efficiency. Design, maintain, and improve how work flows through the company, keeping ERPNext / Frappe as the single operational backbone rather than a scatter of parallel spreadsheets.
• Quality. Set and uphold delivery standards so that what leaves TechAbout reflects well on the brand, and align technical work toward recognised reference standards such as OWASP for application security and ISO/IEC 27001 practices for international clients.
• Cross-team coordination. Keep engineering, SEO, design, security, sales, and the Express team pulling in the same direction, and resolve handoffs and dependencies before they turn into fire drills.
• Capacity and resourcing. Match people and time to committed work, forecast demand, and flag early when the pipeline is outpacing the team.
• Admin and vendor operations. Oversee office, tooling, subscriptions, and third-party vendors so the company's operational plumbing stays reliable and cost-aware.

Decision Rights

The COO owns operational decisions: delivery commitments and deadlines, process and workflow changes, resourcing and assignment across active work, quality gates and acceptance criteria, and day-to-day vendor and tooling choices within agreed budget.

The COO escalates to the CEO: company strategy and market direction, major pricing or commercial-model changes, headcount and organisational structure, spend beyond agreed limits, and any material risk — a serious quality failure, a security incident, a legal exposure, or a client relationship at risk of breaking.

How Success Is Measured

• On-time delivery — commitments met against agreed dates.
• Quality — rework, defects, and revision cycles trending down.
• Utilisation — capacity used productively without burning out the team.
• Client satisfaction — retention, referrals, and healthy engagement feedback.
• Operational health — reliable systems, clean handoffs, and predictable delivery week to week.

Who They Work With

The COO works closely with the CEO to translate strategy into an operating plan, and with every function — delivery leads, security, design, SEO, sales, and Express — as the connective tissue of execution. They partner with People/HR on resourcing and capacity (see Employment Practices & Placements) and with finance and admin on operational spend.

Boundaries

• The COO does not set company strategy alone; that is a shared responsibility led by the CEO.
• The COO does not quietly absorb material risk — such risk is surfaced and escalated, never hidden inside a deadline.
• The COO does not replace functional leaders; the role coordinates and enables them rather than doing their jobs.
• The COO does not own individual performance ratings or pay decisions, which follow the Performance Appraisal and Compensation & Benefits processes.

Strategy is a promise; operations is how that promise is kept. The COO is the guardian of "kept."

While the team is small and scaling, one person may currently hold this role alongside another — for example the CEO or a delivery lead. The charter still describes the role in full; as we grow, these responsibilities separate into their own hands.

Questions? Contact hr@techabout.com.