ZenBusiness COO, Shanaz Hemmati, on building a $1.7B company that thrives in both up and down times, being a technical COO, growing HomeAway through M&A to IPO to more M&A with Expedia, and automating G&A with AI, - Between Two COO's with Michael Koenig

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M&A Public Benefit Corporation remote working Customer satisfaction pandemic adaptation

Episode notes

Join us as we chat with Shanaz Hemmati, the COO of ZenBusiness, who gives us a fascinating insight into the workings of a public benefit corporation that generates more than $100M in ARR. Listen to her as she speaks about the various initiatives and programs that ZenBusiness undertakes to give back to the community and society. From a grant program to support their customers to her role evolution from CIO to COO, Shanaz’s experiences shed light on the strategies they use to navigate their responsibilities within a small team. In this chat, we also explore the potential of generative AI to increase speed, accuracy, scalability, complexity, and accessibility of structured language, and how ZenBusiness leverages this to expand capacity. From discussing the importance of data protection to understanding the potential threats to businesses, Shanaz provides a comprehensive overview of the operations side of the company, including their customer support in the contact center. Shanaz also talks about the company’s organizational structure, with CTO, HR, customer success, legal, program management, procurement, and corporate citizenship all reporting to her.