10 years senior operating Series A through C only Five clients max · Two board seats

The story you have heard before

Founder mode worked.
Operator mode is the new ceiling.

You shipped past Series A. The board wants the next inflection. The team wants the next call. Every operational decision lands on your desk.

You need a senior operator in the room.

Not another consultant deck.

That is the work.

I sit with the operating system. I push back when push back is needed. I leave you with a team that runs without me.

Petra Stavros at a clean glass desk reviewing P and L documents, single cobalt highlighter visible as the only colour pop, hard side light

How I work

I read your org first. I push back early. I leave you with a team that runs without me.

01

The hard call, made once

I am not here to validate the call you have already made. I am here to make sure the next one is the right one. The hard call, made once, saves a quarter of bad work.

02

Ten years on the inside

I scaled an operations function from Series B to Series D and through a $180M acquisition. I know what 200-staff feels like at the wrong hire, the wrong system, the wrong week.

03

Surry Hills, every founder

In person where it matters. The CBD walk-and-talk has unlocked more board-prep clarity than the boardroom itself.

Petra Stavros mid-pitch gesturing across a glass meeting table, single cobalt notebook cover visible as the only colour accent

About

I have been the COO.
I will tell you what works.

Atlassian product ops 2014 to 2018. COO at a fintech Series B through D, 2018 to 2024. Sydney exit at $180M acquisition.

Now solo. Five retainer clients max. Two board seats. I take Series A through Series C only. I do not take more.

I work with founders scaling 30 to 200 staff, women navigating C-suite firsts, and post-acquisition founder-to-corporate transitions. The pattern is the same: a smart leader carrying too much, looking for someone to help them think clearly about the next call.

How an engagement actually goes

From discovery
to off-ramp.

Step 01
Discovery

Free 60 min. Org walk-through. Where you are, where you are stuck, what is broken.

Step 02
First 30 days

Org review and 90-day operating roadmap. Your team meets me, I meet your operating system.

Step 03
Months 2 to 12

Weekly office hours, board prep, hard-conversation support. The operating system gets quieter every quarter.

Step 04
Off-ramp

Senior COO hired internally OR retainer renews. Your call. The off-ramp is the point.

What I offer

Fractional COO.
Done properly.

Six ways to engage. The retainer is the deepest. The advisory seat is the longest. The reset is the sharpest.

Petra's office: clean glass desk with hardcover notebook, MacBook Pro keyboard, single cobalt highlighter as only colour pop, hard side light
01 · Retainer

Fractional COO Retainer

3-month minimum. $7K per month. The deepest engagement model.

  • 018 office hours per week, in-person at Surry Hills or your office
  • 02Async Slack between meetings, direct line, no gatekeeper
  • 03Monthly board-prep cycle, written brief + live walk-through
  • 04Quarterly off-site, individual or co-founder pair
  • 05Off-ramp at quarter twelve, your senior COO hire or renew

From $20K / quarter

Large whiteboard mid-org-chart diagram, single hand mid-marker stroke, cobalt marker as only colour pop
02 · Sprint

Org Review Sprint

2-week deep-dive read of your operating system. Written deliverable.

$9,500

Glass conference table with single bound annual report, pen mid-annotation, cobalt-coloured tab marking a key page, hard side light
03 · Board

Board Advisory Seat

Two seats max. Quarterly board prep + ad-hoc strategic counsel.

$24K / year per seat

Hands holding a printed JD over glass desk, cobalt pen mid-margin annotation, hard side light
04 · Hiring

Hire-Plan Sprint

Senior leadership JD + tech screen + offer review. The hire that holds the year.

$7,500

Hunter Valley off-site setting, single laptop closed on outdoor table, cobalt mug visible as only colour pop, soft natural side light
05 · Reset

Founder Reset

Off-site full-day. Individual or co-founder pair. Hunter Valley or your call.

$4,997 / day

Simple modern desk with a single book, notebook, pen and glass of water, concrete wall behind, cobalt book spine as only colour pop, hard side light
06 · Advisory

Strategic Advisory

Quarterly retainer, 4 hours per month, async-first. For founders who want a thinking partner without the depth of the full retainer.

From $1,800 / month

Receipts not rhetoric

Watch Strike work. Three real conversations.

Three of yesterday's inbound conversations, presented in full. The qualified ones get my calendar. The browsers get the writing. Everyone gets a sharp answer.

Anonymised by stage and sector · Updated weekly

Strike, Petra's assistant
Strike
Petra's assistant · Operator-trained
Online · Responding in < 60s
14:22
Series B SaaS, post-product-market-fit, 18 months out of a tough acquisition. COO left six months ago. Need someone to bring discipline back.
That is the operational gap that kills momentum after acquisition. Couple of things to map before I waste your time: revenue scale right now, headcount, and what specifically broke when the COO left. Was it the cadence (weekly business review, quarterly planning), or the systems (OKR rigor, hiring discipline, finance ops)?
14:22
14:24
$38M ARR, 140 heads, cadence collapsed. We run weekly EOS but it is checkbox now. Hiring is the bigger pain. 22 open roles, 6 senior.
OK. That is three-month retainer territory, not a sprint. Cadence rebuild is week-one work. Petra runs the WBR for four weeks until your leadership team sees the standard, then steps back. Hiring engine sits in parallel. Hire-Plan Sprint frames roles 1 to 6 with JD, screen scaffolding, and offer-review baked in. Retainer is $24K per month, three-month minimum, three days a week present in your operating system. If that math works, next step is sixty minutes with Petra to map week one. Thursday or Friday?
14:25
14:26
Thursday 3pm.
Booked. Petra's calendar will send you the dial-in in the next minute. Three things to have ready: your latest WBR deck, the 22 open roles list, and the org chart at director level and up. Talk Thursday.
14:26
Outcome → Discovery booked Thursday 3pm · 3-month retainer scoped · WBR + Hire-Plan Sprint mapped
17
Inbounds qualified
Past 24 hours · stage + sector + ICP fit screened before they touched Petra's calendar.
4
Booked to discovery
Series A / B / C operators · Wednesday and Thursday slots · auto-scheduled.
9
Emails captured
Not-yet-ready prospects routed to Petra's writing list · 7-day nurture in progress.
< 60s
Average reply
Real archetype voice · operator-trained · NOT a chatbot reading from a script.

That is Strike on a normal day for Petra. Yours can sound like this by Thursday.

Founder rate $1,997 AUD · One fee, yours for life · Live in 48 hours

Try Strike on your business

See exactly what Strike would say for you.

Three inputs. Sixty seconds. Three sample replies in real archetype voice using YOUR words. Then the offer. No email required.

The name Strike will refer to in every reply.
Optional. Helps Strike land the context faster.
Optional. The thing buyers usually ask about first.
→ Reply 1 · Hot-lead inbound
→ Reply 2 · Price-curious
→ Reply 3 · Researching
That was Strike. Customised to YOUR business. Before you paid a cent.
Yours can sound like this by Thursday.
Personal brand site plus your own 24/7 AI Receptionist at the founder rate: $1,997 AUD (standard $2,997). One fee. Yours for life. No subscriptions. Live in 48 hours. The real one is sharper than this preview because it learns from every conversation on your site.
Reserve a founder slot →
Eight slots left in this vertical · No subscription · Yours forever

Real questions

The stuff founders ask
first.

Do you take board seats?
Yes. Two max. Quarterly board prep + ad-hoc strategic counsel between meetings. $24K per year per seat. I do not stack seats. Two is the cap.
Can I just hire you full-time?
No. Fractional only. Five-client cap. The reason the work works is the depth across five concurrent operating systems. Going full-time at one means losing the pattern recognition that makes the call sharper.
What stages do you work with?
Series A through Series C. Occasional pre-Series A if the founder is extraordinary and the operational pain is acute. Post-acquisition integration is case-by-case. Pre-seed is usually not the right fit.
Do you specialise in a sector?
B2B SaaS, fintech, marketplace. Not consumer. Not deep-tech. The pattern recognition is sector-bounded; outside the bounds the call gets less sharp.
Can you help us hire?
Yes. The Hire-Plan Sprint is a productised version. Senior leadership JD + screen + offer review. Hiring support is also point 4 of every retainer engagement, so it sits inside the operating cadence rather than as a one-off.
What if you and I aren't a fit?
The discovery call answers this in 60 minutes. No charge. If we are not a fit I will point you to one of three operators in my network who probably are. The wrong COO costs more than the right fee, every time.

Got a question Strike did not answer? Just ask them.

Brief Strike now

Five client cap.
Q3 2026 booking now.

Two slots open this quarter. The discovery call is free. The retainer is three-month minimum. The off-ramp is the point.

Book the discovery Brief Strike instead
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