S02E01: Operations Isn't Spelled with a Capital 'O'

Ops Game Changers

Ops Game Changers
S02E01: Operations Isn't Spelled with a Capital 'O'
Mar 13, 2026 Season 2 Episode 1
ActiveOps

You're listening to 'Ops Game Changers', the ActiveOps podcast where we share real-life stories from remarkable leaders that are revolutionizing the world of service operations. In this series, we explore some of the key challenges faced by service operations as they strive to deliver more — more capacity, more productivity and more business impact. Host, Bhavesh Vaghela (CMO at ActiveOps) quizzes his guests on how they went about unlocking significant value, adopting best practices, and experiencing some game-changing results.

In this episode, we are joined by Dan O'Neill, an experienced banking Chief Operating Officer with over two decades transforming operations across some of the world's leading financial institutions in the UK and Australia. Dan shares the leadership philosophy at the heart of his new whitepaper: 'Operations' with a capital O is just a function, but 'operations' with a lower case o is the end-to-end flow of work that runs through every part of the business. And most organizations are only looking at one of them.

Drawing on real stories from his career, Dan explores why performance improvements often stall, why transformation programs fail to materialize, and what it truly means to govern operations as a leadership discipline. Is your organization measuring performance function by function while value stalls in the handoffs between them? Or perhaps you're leading a transformation program and wondering why the results never quite materialize? Then this episode is for you.

Download Dan's whitepaper, Operations Isn't Spelled with a Capital 'O', to go deeper on the ideas explored in this episode. 

Want to learn more about how to radically transform your company through the power of operations? Then don't miss the following episodes and hear more fascinating insights from other leaders in the field of Operations about how they have overcome challenges to drive productivity and boost performance at their enterprises. You can listen and subscribe to ‘Ops Game Changers’ on your preferred podcast platform and also on our YouTube channel, AOTv.

Discover more about ActiveOps.

Episode Artwork S02E01: Operations Isn't Spelled with a Capital 'O' 55:56 Episode Artwork S01E12: The power of data and unlocking the 80/20 to focus on what matters most 51:53 Episode Artwork S01E11: Reimagining Operations with purpose and people at the centre 42:54 Episode Artwork S01E10: How Great Britain Rugby Sevens use data to drive performance in sport 46:13 Episode Artwork S01E09: Simplifying Operations for Maximum Efficiency and Customer Satisfaction 39:06 Episode Artwork S01E08: Integrating Operations and Finance for improved decision intelligence 41:31 Episode Artwork S01E07: Becoming more data-centric to improve operational decisions 42:00 Episode Artwork S01E06: Driving efficiency and business growth with upskilling 47:49 Episode Artwork S01E05: Achieving operational excellence: Atlanta Group's approach to multiple brands 33:38 Episode Artwork S01E04: Transforming Operations with AI and Automation 41:16 Episode Artwork S01E03: Driving Employee Engagement to Improve Staff and Customer Satisfaction 33:41 Episode Artwork S01E02: Building a Fully Flexible Workforce and Operating Model by Connecting Front and Back-office 35:22 Episode Artwork S01E01: Skyrocketing NPS and CX in Service Operations 32:30