Second in Command: The Chief Behind the Chief with Cameron Herold

How do you walk into a company of nearly 800 people as its first-ever president and win over the ones who wanted your job?
We are bringing this one back because it keeps landing with second-in-command leaders. Cameron sits down with Sameer Kazi, the first president in ActiveCampaign's history, who joined a fast-growing company of nearly 800 people and had to earn trust from day one.
Sameer traces his path from employee 200 at ExactTarget through the Salesforce acquisition, KKR, Bessemer, and running Cheetah Digital, then unpacks how he split responsibilities with the CEO, why he brings non-finance leaders close to the numbers, and how he decides with incomplete information.
If you are stepping into a senior seat or scaling a business without losing its edge, this one is worth the revisit. Listen now.

Sponsored by:
This episode is brought to you by our Silver Sponsor, Next Level Growth.
They help COOs and leadership teams build Elite Organizations through a proven, customizable framework built around the Five Obsessions of Elite Organizations.
If you and your leadership team are ready to operate at the next level, take the Elite Organizations Assessment and receive a free 20-page customized report based on your answers, plus a complimentary one-hour coaching session with a Next Level Growth Partner and Business Guide to begin implementing tools that will help you build an even more elite business.
Complete the assessment here to get started - nextlevelgrowth.com/cooassessment

Timestamped Highlights
02:35 Employee 200 at a "tiny little company" called ExactTarget
03:15 Filing an S-1 in 2008, right as the markets fell apart
03:50 Why the growth never actually slowed down
05:37 The years between Salesforce and ActiveCampaign
08:50 Walking into KKR and asking, "Barbarians at the Gate?"
10:38 The boardroom lesson from a business with declining growth
12:38 What an MBA is actually good for
13:38 Reading Salesforce's income statement before SaaS was cool
14:48 The 54% lever that only works while growth holds
15:52 Quitting his job to raise money with twins on the way
16:32 Why ActiveCampaign came looking for him
19:23 Why the role was never about empire building
21:46 Winning over the people who wanted his seat
25:11 How you know when you know enough to decide
26:24 What ActiveCampaign really does
34:47 Why every non-finance leader should learn the numbers
37:25 The advice he would give his 21-year-old self

About the Guest
Sameer Kazi was serving as President of ActiveCampaign at the time of this recording, the first person to hold that title in the company's history, reporting to founder and CEO Jason VandeBoom. A veteran SaaS operator, he was an early executive at ExactTarget (employee 200) through its acquisition by Salesforce and ran EMEA operations from London. He later served as interim CEO of Simply Measured and CEO of Cheetah Digital, and worked alongside investors including KKR and Bessemer. He holds an MBA and describes himself as a sleeves-rolled-up, sweat-the-details operator. Sameer is now the Chief Executive Officer at Pantheon Platform.
🔗 LinkedIn
Mentioned Resources
ActiveCampaign
Salesforce, formerly ExactTarget
Simply Measured - acquired by Sprout Social
Cheetah Digital - now Marigold
KKR
Bessemer Venture Partners
Experian
Silversmith Capital Partners
True
Cisco
Zapier
1-800-GOT-JUNK

Important Links
Connect with Cameron: Website | LinkedIn
Explore the COO Alliance - The World's Leading Community for Seconds in Command
Get Cameron's book: Second in Command: Unleash the Power of Your COO Book
Claim your FREE copy: Second in Command: Unleash the Power of Your COO Book
Take his course: Invest In Your Leaders Online Course (Use promo code PODCAST10 before the end of the month for 10% off)
Chat or video call with AI Cameron via Delphi

Note: This Fan Favorite episode is a recast of one of our most impactful interviews, still packed with insights for second-in-command leaders. Whether it is your first listen or a revisit, there is timeless value inside.

The Second in Command Podcast is an original production hosted by Cameron Herold. Brought to you by COO Alliance. Production and editing by Podcast Your Brand.

Sponsored by:
This episode is brought to you by our Silver Sponsor, Next Level Growth.
They help COOs and leadership teams build Elite Organizations through a proven, customizable framework built around the Five Obsessions of Elite Organizations.
If you and your leadership team are ready to operate at the next level, take the Elite Organizations Assessment and receive a free 20-page customized report based on your answers, plus a complimentary one-hour coaching session with a Next Level Growth Partner and Business Guide to begin implementing tools that will help you build an even more elite business.
Complete the assessment here to get started - nextlevelgrowth.com/cooassessment

What does it really take to turn a single-family ranch into a thriving, multi-stream meat company that families and top chefs trust?
In this episode, Lindsay Smith sits down with Conner Hackett, General Manager of Stemple Creek Ranch, to unpack how a small California ranch grew into a multichannel meat company without ever cutting corners.
Conner shares why culture and purpose matter more than technical skill, how one ranch became farmers markets, direct-to-consumer, events, and ranch stays, and what it actually takes to build a resilient local food system that keeps the dollars pointed back at the people on the ground.
If you lead operations and want a real playbook for scaling with legacy and integrity intact, this conversation delivers. Listen now.
Sponsored by:
Genius Network - An exclusive community for highly successful entrepreneurs, connecting you with top-tier leaders, strategic insights, and powerful relationships to help you grow your business faster and smarter.
Learn more: https://www.geniusnetwork.com/

Timestamped Highlights
00:17 - How a fifth-generation rancher ended up leading a meat company
01:14 - Why he walked away from a finance internship at Merrill Lynch
03:14 - What it is really like to join a company whose culture is already built
04:28 - The complex work of turning whole animals into a real business
07:11 - The hidden hurdle most small producers underestimate
09:49 - Why the meat company only works if it serves the rancher first
10:52 - How Stemple Creek builds fierce loyalty one customer at a time
15:27 - What actually happens behind the booth at a world-class farmers market
24:04 - The most defining moment: getting the whole team under one roof
26:16 - Wearing every hat as GM, and the surprise he did not expect
30:01 - Why the why matters more than the technical skill set
31:52 - The weight of legacy, and the moment it flipped for him
37:50 - The direct-to-consumer bet that could define the next chapter

About the Guest
Conner Hackett is the General Manager of Stemple Creek Ranch, a fourth-generation family ranch near Tomales, California that raises grass-fed beef and lamb and has grown into a multichannel meat company. A fifth-generation rancher himself, Conner came up in agriculture, worked in the Bay Area meat and restaurant world, and founded his own consulting business before joining Stemple Creek, where he now leads finance, marketing, and operations for the meat enterprise.
🔗 LinkedIn | Website

Mentioned Resources
Integrate Consulting
Merrill Lynch
Leopold Conservation Award

About the Co-Host
Lindsay Smith is an experience-driven growth strategist and former Chief Strategy Officer. She previously scaled a new region without a traditional sales team or bloated marketing budget by turning relationships, culture, and execution into revenue. She is the author of No One Needs Another Company Mug, Stop Branding, Start Experiencing, and helps leadership teams use experience as a competitive growth lever.
🔗 Connect with Lindsay on LinkedIn

Important Links
Connect with Cameron: Website | LinkedIn
Explore the COO Alliance - The World's Leading Community for Seconds in Command
Get Cameron's book: Second in Command, Unleash the Power of Your COO Book
Claim your FREE copy: Second in Command: Unleash the Power of Your COO Book
Take his course: Invest In Your Leaders Online Course (Use promo code PODCAST10 before the end of the month for 10% off)
Chat or video call with AI Cameron via Delphi

The Second in Command Podcast is an original production hosted by Cameron Herold and co-hosted by Lindsay Smith. Brought to you by COO Alliance. Production and editing by Podcast Your Brand.
Sponsored by:
Genius Network - An exclusive community for highly successful entrepreneurs, connecting you with top-tier leaders, strategic insights, and powerful relationships to help you grow your business faster and smarter.
Learn more: https://www.geniusnetwork.com/

What does it take to go from astrophysics to running operations at one of the fastest-growing AI companies in the world?
In this Fan Favorite episode, Cameron Herold sits down with Victoria Weller, former Chief of Staff and now Lead of Operations at ElevenLabs, to revisit one of the show’s most fascinating conversations. Victoria’s path is rare: astrophysics, space medicine, quantum encryption, and Palantir, before landing at the AI voice company reshaping how the world listens.
She breaks down what a Chief of Staff really does at an early-stage startup, how she cleared SOC 2 compliance in seven weeks, and why ElevenLabs grew so fast. They also get into voice cloning, deepfake safeguards, and surprising use cases across hospitals, transit, and accessibility.
Whether you want a COO seat or you are building functions from nothing, Victoria’s story is a masterclass in figuring it out fast. Listen now.

Sponsored by:
Redirect Health - Affordable healthcare benefits designed to make traditional insurance optional, with 24/7 access to primary care and Rx support that helps businesses reduce costs while keeping employees covered.
Learn more: http://www.redirectcoo.com/

Timestamped Highlights
[00:00:44] – The ElevenLabs mission, and why an EPUB can become an instant audiobook
[00:02:55] – Munich to Edinburgh to Berlin to New York: a career across four countries
[00:04:06] – What actually happens to an astronaut’s blood in zero gravity
[00:07:54] – Lasers, quantum encryption, and the pivot toward tech
[00:13:06] – Cameron asks the big ones: aliens, and are we living in a simulation?
[00:19:12] – What ElevenLabs is really building, explained simply
[00:20:50] – How context lets an AI voice sound genuinely sad or genuinely happy
[00:28:12] – The accessibility use cases the team never saw coming
[00:31:03] – Cloning a late loved one’s voice, and the compliance behind it
[00:33:16] – Stopping deepfake voice scams: watermarks and the AI Speech Classifier
[00:38:31] – What a Chief of Staff actually does, and why it feels like a SWAT team
[00:40:32] – Does a great Chief of Staff work themselves out of a job?
[00:47:07] – The advice Victoria would give her 21-year-old self

About the Guest
Victoria Weller is the former Chief of Staff and now the Lead of Operations at ElevenLabs, the AI voice company behind lifelike text-to-speech and voice cloning, where she owns internal operations, compliance, and hiring. She cleared the company’s SOC 2 process in seven weeks. Before ElevenLabs she was a reliability engineer at Palantir Technologies in New York and London. Her background spans astrophysics at the University of Edinburgh, space-medicine research in Berlin, and a master’s in applied physics from Columbia University.
🔗 LinkedIn | Website

Resources & Mentions
Palantir
Columbia University
Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics
OpenAI (ChatGPT)
Midjourney
There’s An AI For That
TED

Important Links
Connect with Cameron: Website | LinkedIn
Explore the COO Alliance - The World’s Leading Community for Seconds in Command
Get Cameron’s book: Second in Command: Unleash the Power of Your COO Book
Claim your FREE copy: Second in Command: Unleash the Power of Your COO Book
Take his course: Invest In Your Leaders Online Course (Use promo code PODCAST10 before the end of the month for 10% off)
Chat or video call with AI Cameron via Delphi

Note: This Fan Favorite episode is a recast of one of our most impactful interviews, still packed with insights for second-in-command leaders. Whether it is your first listen or a revisit, there is timeless value inside.

The Second in Command Podcast is an original production hosted by Cameron Herold. Brought to you by COO Alliance. Production and editing by Podcast Your Brand.

Sponsored by:
Redirect Health - Affordable healthcare benefits designed to make traditional insurance optional, with 24/7 access to primary care and Rx support that helps businesses reduce costs while keeping employees covered.
Learn more: http://www.redirectcoo.com/

What if the most important team you lead is not the one you actually run?
In this solo episode, Cameron Herold tells the story of coaching a 400-person company that had become the best place to work in its state, then watched politics spread through the leadership team like black mold. Silos, turf wars, and finger-pointing crept in right as the company scaled.
His fix starts with one shift: your leadership team is your first team, not the department you run. Cameron breaks down the exact systems he used at 1-800-GOT-JUNK to keep leaders aligned, from weekly shout-outs and a shared dashboard to a rallying cry, offsite quarters, and even a giant Monopoly board.
If your leaders are protecting their own turf instead of winning together, this one is for you. Listen now.

Sponsored by:
Cadre AI – Helping business leaders identify the highest-impact opportunities for AI and implement strategies that drive greater efficiency, profitability, and revenue.
Learn more: https://cadreai.com

Timestamped Highlights
[01:04] - The leadership idea Cameron spent years figuring out before sharing it
[01:27] - The Florida company he grew 10x, then watched get infected
[01:56] - The black mold that spreads across even the best places to work
[02:34] - Why a wide receiver's most important team is not the offense
[02:59] - The first team rule every 1-800-GOT-JUNK leader lived by
[03:44] - The 15-second weekly habit that quietly kills silos
[05:05] - The rallying cry that pulls leaders out of their own turf
[05:55] - The death zone between 30 and 100 employees, and the trap inside it
[07:23] - Why your best quarterly planning never happens in the office
[08:07] - Why one simple dashboard beats sixty scattered metrics
[09:29] - The giant Monopoly board that turned projects into a team game
[11:30] - Flip your org chart upside down, and see who lands at the bottom

Mentioned Resources
1-800-GOT-JUNK (the company Cameron helped build and scale)
BlueGrace Logistics (the Florida company in the coaching story)
YPO (Young Presidents' Organization)

Important Links
Connect with Cameron: Website | LinkedIn
Explore the COO Alliance - The World’s Leading Community for Seconds in Command
Get Cameron’s book: Second in Command, Unleash the Power of Your COO Book
Claim your FREE copy: Second in Command: Unleash the Power of Your COO Book
Take his course: Invest In Your Leaders Online Course (Use promo code PODCAST10 before the end of the month for 10% off)
Chat or video call with AI Cameron via Delphi

The Second in Command Podcast is an original production hosted by Cameron Herold. Brought to you by COO Alliance. Production and editing by Podcast Your Brand.

Sponsored by:
Cadre AI – Helping business leaders identify the highest-impact opportunities for AI and implement strategies that drive greater efficiency, profitability, and revenue.
Learn more: https://cadreai.com

Ever wonder what happens when the COO who scaled a company to $100 million realizes he was the problem?
In this episode, Cameron sits down with Mike Wood, COO of Jarrett Companies, who joined a $2 million Nashville construction firm and helped grow it into seven companies doing over $100 million.
They get into the machinery behind that growth: meetings from 6 to 9 a.m., five days a week, a double check on everybody in the building, and profit sharing that turns leaders into owners. Then it goes deeper. Mike opens up about learning to read at 25, the misery that followed his biggest turnaround, and the million-dollar flood where taking full ownership changed his entire team.
If the noise in your head is louder than the problems on your desk, this conversation is your way out. Listen now.

Sponsored by:
STS Capital – A global M&A advisory firm helping entrepreneurs achieve maximum value when selling their business, with a focus on strategic buyers and life-changing exits.
Learn more: https://stscapital.com

Timestamped Highlights
05:30 - Two million to one hundred million: why Mike had to keep replacing himself, over and over
07:38 - Meetings from 6 to 9 a.m., five days a week: the double check habit that ended repeat mistakes
13:16 - The six out of ten rule: why waiting two months on a problem employee costs you everything
15:51 - How to create safety before a hard conversation, so people can actually hear you
18:41 - The science of angry leadership: cortisol, the default mode network, and why exploding makes you dumber
23:26 - More money, happy family, great job, and the most miserable he had ever been: the fish tank moment
24:30 - Learning to read at 25: how a rare form of dyslexia wrote the negative script in Mike's head
30:28 - "This flood is my fault": the $1 million claim that became a masterclass in taking ownership
34:32 - What owners do when nobody is watching, and why every person in the building needs a double check
42:10 - Inside Learn to Love Being You: removing identities, forgiveness, and rewriting the stories that haunt us
About the Guest
Mike Wood is the COO of Jarrett Companies, a Nashville-based commercial construction group spanning site work, paving, concrete, fire protection, and mechanical services. Since joining as an estimator and project manager, he has helped grow the business from $2 million to more than $100 million in revenue across seven companies, including a fire protection company later sold to a private equity firm. Mike is also the founder of Learn to Love Being You, a 10-week program that helps people quiet anxiety and self-doubt through the same inner work that transformed his own leadership.

🔗 LinkedIn | Website

Mentioned Resources
Jason Jarrett, CEO of Jarrett Companies
Learn to Love Being You
Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin
The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber
Smartsheet
1-800-GOT-JUNK?

Important Links
Connect with Cameron: Website | LinkedIn
Explore the COO Alliance - The World's Leading Community for Seconds in Command
Get Cameron's book: Second in Command: Unleash the Power of Your COO Book
Take his course: Invest In Your Leaders Online Course (Use promo code PODCAST10 before the end of the month for 10% off)
Chat or video call with AI Cameron via Delphi

The Second in Command Podcast is an original production hosted by Cameron Herold. Brought to you by COO Alliance. Production and editing by Podcast Your Brand.

Sponsored by:
STS Capital – A global M&A advisory firm helping entrepreneurs achieve maximum value when selling their business, with a focus on strategic buyers and life-changing exits.
Learn more: https://stscapital.com