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James Harrington III

Chief Operating Officer

Email Phone LocationPalo Alto, CA LinkedInhttps://linkedin.com/in/jamesharrington

Operational leader who has scaled three SaaS companies through hypergrowth, two acquisitions, and one IPO. I build the machine that builds the product.

Executive Summary

Eighteen years leading operations at enterprise SaaS companies, with direct P&L responsibility for organizations ranging from 40 to 1,200 people. I specialize in the messy middle: the period after product-market fit when everything has to professionalize simultaneously — hiring, revenue ops, customer success, and the finance function — without breaking the culture that got you there. My teams have collectively managed $680M in ARR, and the playbooks we built have survived two acquisitions intact.

Experience

Chief Operating Officer

Ridgeline Systems

2021 – Present San Francisco, CA

Full operational leadership across a 420-person company ($185M ARR, Series D). Direct reports: VP Engineering, VP Revenue, VP People, CFO.

  • Grew ARR from $62M to $185M while improving net revenue retention from 108% to 127%.
  • Designed and executed the restructuring from functional silos to business units; reduced cross-team dependencies by 40%.
  • Built the revenue operations function from scratch; quota attainment increased from 64% to 89% within three quarters.
  • Led the acquisition of DataMesh ($28M); integrated 65 employees and consolidated product lines in under 90 days.
  • Reduced operating expenses by $14M annually through vendor consolidation and headcount efficiency without layoffs.

VP of Operations

Helios Analytics

2017 – 2021 Austin, TX

Operational leadership through the company's growth from 85 to 340 people and from $18M to $95M ARR. Reported to CEO.

  • Orchestrated the Series C ($45M) and Series D ($120M) fundraises; led due diligence and financial modeling.
  • Stood up the customer success organization (42 CSMs); reduced gross churn from 14% to 4.2% annually.
  • Implemented OKR framework company-wide; executive alignment score improved from 3.1 to 4.6 (internal pulse survey).
  • Managed the Austin-to-distributed transition during COVID with zero attrition in the first six months.

Director of Business Operations

Aperture Software

2013 – 2017 Boston, MA

First operations hire. Built the ops infrastructure that supported the company through IPO (2016, $1.2B market cap at listing).

  • Created the financial planning and analysis function; built the models used in the S-1 filing.
  • Designed the partner channel program that grew to represent 22% of bookings within two years.
  • Hired and managed a 15-person operations team spanning rev ops, deal desk, and business intelligence.

Associate → Engagement Manager

McKinsey & Company

2008 – 2013 New York, NY

Enterprise technology and operations practice. Led engagements for Fortune 500 clients in financial services and healthcare.

  • Led a $200M cost transformation program for a top-10 US bank; delivered $47M in year-one savings.
  • Managed a 14-person team on a 9-month post-merger integration for two regional health systems.
  • Named to the firm's top-20 engagement managers list (2012).

Education

Board Service & Recognition

Speaking & Writing

  1. The operator's guide to surviving hypergrowth

    SaaStr Annual 2024 (keynote) 2024

    A 40-minute talk on operational frameworks that scale from 50 to 500 people.

  2. Why your rev ops team should report to the COO

    First Round Review 2023

    An essay on organizational design for revenue operations.

  3. Post-acquisition integration: a 90-day playbook

    Harvard Business Review (online) 2022

    Lessons from the DataMesh acquisition at Ridgeline.

Community

Executive Mentor

Year Up

2019 – Present

Quarterly mentoring sessions with young adults pursuing careers in tech operations.

Mentor

Techstars Boston

2015 – 2017