Chief Operating Officer @ 3sixty
October 2018 - September 2022
What 3sixty taught me
3sixty gave me a front-row seat to how operations really work. I learned how to manage remote teams, build scalable systems, navigate crises, and pivot when needed.
It also taught me what kind of leader I wanted to be: clear, steady, hands-on when needed — but always focused on creating the space for others to do their best work.
Getting hands-on with the product
When I joined 3sixty in 2018, the MVP had just been released — a rough but working image production platform. As COO, I was immediately hands-on: shaping features, gathering user feedback, and designing the UI/UX before passing it over to our external dev team.
I wasn’t managing from a distance — I was in the weeds. Working with the team daily, organising delivery and figuring out what our clients actually needed versus what we thought they did.
Fixing what was slowing us down
A big part of my role was identifying what was broken and rebuilding it. I introduced better production tracking and performance monitoring so we could see what was working — and what wasn’t.
That shift gave us visibility, helped us move from gut feel to data, and allowed us to make clearer decisions across fulfilment, quality, and client delivery.
Scaling without breaking
We were growing fast, and it showed. At first, we scaled a fully remote team to over 100 people — tightening communication, simplifying tools, and trusting people to do their jobs. It worked, to a point.
But as demand kept growing, we needed more flexibility and speed. That’s when I built out a multi-country supplier network — 15 companies across five countries — to supplement our internal capacity.
I vetted over 300 potential partners, created onboarding systems, and built the operational framework to keep quality consistent across borders and time zones. It gave us the scale we needed — without burning out the team we already had.
Clear comms over chaos
Working across multiple countries and time zones meant building a culture where communication actually worked. That meant over-communicating when it mattered, stripping out unnecessary complexity, and getting better at documentation.
I became sharper at resolving ambiguity, faster at unblocking people, and more deliberate in how I kept everyone aligned. That experience shaped how I lead and communicate to this day.
Running a business through uncertainty
When COVID hit, everything got harder — fast. We had a large remote team, clients under pressure, and no clear roadmap for how to move forward. But we didn’t panic.
We adapted quickly: reshuffled workflows, cut out noise, focused on what mattered, and doubled down on supporting the team. We made decisions faster, communicated more clearly, and leaned into the systems we’d already built.
It wasn’t easy — but we stayed fully operational, kept our team intact, and came out of it not just intact, but better for it.
Knowing when to pivot
Not everything we tried worked — and I learned to be okay with that. There were features, processes, even parts of the business model that didn’t hold up under pressure.
I learned to let go of sunk costs, listen to what the data and the users were telling me, and change course before it was too late.
A small experiment that changed everything
One of our most successful experiments at 3sixty was a mobile app that let clients upload photos directly from their phones. Simple idea, huge impact. It became the seed for what later grew into Autopix.
That moment showed us what was possible when we listened closely to our users and moved quickly to build what they actually needed — not just what we planned on our roadmap.
TL;DR?
Built systems, led remote teams, solved real problems — and helped 3sixty grow through everything from messy scaling to COVID. Learned a lot. Shaped how I lead today.