---
title: "Where Should RevOps Report?"
episode: 15
podcast: "The LeanScale Podcast"
publisher: "LeanScale"
guest: "Cameron Legge"
guest_title: "Engagement Manager, LeanScale"
date_published: 2023-07-25
date_modified: 2026-07-22
duration: 00:16:55
word_count: 2724
topics: ["revenue-operations", "sales-enablement", "gtm-strategy", "sales-leadership"]
canonical_url: https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app/podcast/cameron-legge-where-revops-report/
source: "LeanScale Podcast Knowledge Hub — https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app"
license: "Free to quote and cite with attribution to The LeanScale Podcast."
---

# Where Should RevOps Report? — Full Transcript

> Episode 15 of The LeanScale Podcast, with Cameron Legge.
> Published July 25, 2023 · 00:16:55 · 2,724 words.
> Machine-transcribed and **not diarized** — speaker attribution is inferred, so verify
> attribution against the audio before quoting a specific person.
> Structured breakdown: https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app/podcast/cameron-legge-where-revops-report/

## 00:00 — Cold open + welcome

**[0:00]** If you put revenue operations with a CRO, but they don't own one of the functions, then you're not going to have authority over the process that really connects the whole go-to-market lifecycle. Welcome to The LeanScale Podcast where we talk about everything RevOps. Thank you for listening. I think one of the most controversial topics about RevOps is where it should report and how you should structure it over time. Agreed. I mean, this is something that we're super passionate about. We obviously work with our customers every day, and it's always interesting to see the different types of roles that we work with and where we even feel like LeanScale fits

## 00:54 — The Genesis of RevOps: when do you need it?

**[0:54]** best as a RevOps as a service company. Really excited to dive in with you on some of our own thoughts on where the best place to nestle RevOps is in your organization. Yeah, absolutely. I think probably a good place to start is Genesis of RevOps. When does a company typically need to start investing in RevOps, and what do those first roles look like? Well, it's probably earlier than most people think. Obviously, when you're first getting a company off the ground, you're thinking a lot about the traditional cornerstones and main business functions, your sales, your marketing, your product teams. Obviously, you have to start somewhere.

## 01:36 — The first hire: a systems admin

**[1:36]** Getting that initial business foundation is important, but as that starts to get up and running and your business starts to get rolling, I don't think it's ever too early to start thinking about revenue operations as a whole and getting that integrated into your business. As you start to think about adding revenue operations into your core business functions, the first role, even though it's certainly not the sexiest as it comes to revenue operations as a function and a topic or an area of business, is going to be a systems admin. Having somebody that's dedicated to, obviously, first and foremost, manage your CRM, but then

**[2:15]** also start to get those other connected tools that are going to really power your teams that are in place, the marketing team, the sales team, the customer success team, or there may only be one of those roles in your organizations as you're young and you're starting out, but the systems admin is so important. You're going to hire that systems admin, and then you're immediately going to go tell them to watch one of our former podcast episodes that came out recently with Sakai, our co-founder and chief architect, about the top five tips of really getting your CRM up and running and just really make sure that you're not missing that.

## 02:52 — The second skill set: business ops, analytics & reporting

**[2:52]** That's going to be the start, and then you're going to look for another skill set, which is more centered around business operations, the process, and the analytics and reporting that you're really looking for and is really the gold standard of what you want to get out of your revenue operations function. Now, if you're able to find a systems admin that can do both of those, you found a unicorn, so please send our resume our way immediately. Yeah, we'd love to hire you. When you don't find that unicorn, call 1-800-LEAN-SCALE immediately, but seriously, reach out as you're thinking about starting your revenue operations function.

**[3:31]** We'd love to chat with you about what we do at LeanScale and really managing both sides and really catering and servicing both sides of that, so the system admin side plus the analytics reporting and process side. That's something that we love to lean in on, obviously, and do every day. Yeah, I think that's interesting, starting with the systems admin, because normally if you're at an early stage company, you did a seed round, a Series A, you likely have a sales leader in place, and then they probably have to start implementing tools on their own because you might not be able to invest in these type of roles that early on, but

## 04:11 — Why the VP of Sales shouldn't build the systems

**[4:11]** quickly the opportunity cost of having your VP of sales or potentially a CRO, trying to set up Salesforce, trying to connect it to HubSpot, and then they're not really trained in it either, it just becomes a complete waste of time. I see that too. I think the systems admin role is usually the first one that comes into play, but then quickly I feel like things start to need a different level of development when you bring in somebody more strategic. When that happens, what type of skills are you looking for, and why can't that system admin role just fulfill the need that the company has at that time? Once you start scaling.

## 04:58 — Why one generalist can't scale

**[4:58]** Yeah, yeah, I think it just becomes a big thing to manage as you're scaling, more things are happening in the revenue engine, it's even hard to just have one person no matter their true skill set to really be able to cover all things and do them well, to be spread out like that, you're just going to start to get less production from your revenue operation function. So I think having roles that are dedicated to really looking at each of the core tenants of RevOps is important just because you're going to have more results from having people specifically focused on, "Hey, I'm responsible for the tech admin side."

**[5:42]** Certainly they're hopefully going to have experience in CRMs and connected tools and marketing and sales and customers to have the right context of what they're building. So certainly they're a stakeholder, you're not leaving them to, "Hey, go in the back and start building the flows and validation rules in your Salesforce or HubSpot." You want them to be involved in the process, but it just becomes big to manage and to have people that are in their lanes and firing in all cylinders and driving 75, 80 down the freeway is 100% what you want. Makes a lot of sense. Something I think a lot of companies struggle with and we get the question a lot.

## 06:18 — Where should RevOps report? Start with the CRO

**[6:18]** I get the question all the time. Where should RevOps report when you're taking that direct line to the C-suite? What role should revenue operations report into? Yeah. It's an awesome question and I know something again that we have our own thoughts and opinions about from experience of doing RevOps at multiple companies and now servicing our wonderful customers in RevOps. So I think from a reporting up to standpoint, certainly a CRO is our number one, this is where we want RevOps to sit into. I think the big thing there is having a CRO that's full scope. So we talk about GTM lifecycle and when we talk about that at lean scale, it's cold lead

**[7:08]** to mature adopting customer. We're looking at all of that. And that's what really makes it revenue operations. I like to explain revenue operations as we're that connective tissue between marketing, sales, customer success or your account management function. Otherwise, you're most likely just fitting into sales ops, which has been around for a long time. Revenue operations, you used the word Genesis, it's a newer concept in business function. So having a CRO that is a true CRO, and this is no knock on CROs, but we find a lot of times CROs are sort of moonlighting as a VP of sales or very focused on the sales aspect

## 07:53 — How often is the CRO truly full-scope?

**[7:53]** of a business, which is obviously important. It's your revenue driver, it's your main revenue driver. So that's important, but a true CRO that's looking across the entire revenue organization, that's where we feel like is a good spot for RevOps. How often do you think that CRO is in that position where they're actually looking over the entire go-to-market lifecycle? They don't have a VP of marketing reporting somewhere else. They don't have success or service reporting into product. How often do you see that the CRO in-seat is properly looking over the whole go-to-market lifecycle?

**[8:28]** Yeah, I think anecdotally, it is rarer than you would think, but it's so important, and I think as you're ascending somebody or selecting somebody for that chief revenue officer role, that's certainly one of the things that we think is a big part of the interview process and really selecting the right candidate is their familiarity and their want to be involved in everything across the revenue organization. So that's certainly one place. I know you have some other thoughts that may be a little bit more outside the box of where RevOps could potentially fit into. Well, I think if you have a true CRO, like you said, I think it's a really good place

## 09:09 — The COO as the next-best home

**[9:09]** for the function to fit in because they have executive responsibility across the whole cycle. But like we talked about, I don't think it's as common as we think, and most CROs are really just VPs of sales. So if you have a true CRO, have a report there. If you don't have a true CRO, I think the next best role, if you have this role too, and a lot of scaling startups don't have this role, is a chief operating officer. So if you have a COO, that's a really good place for revenue operations to live if you don't have a true CRO because that role is responsible for the entire company.

## 09:55 — The strategic CFO option for Series A–C

**[9:55]** They may have product operations teams, they may have people operations teams, and then having revenue operations would be a really good fit for that type of executive. Now let's use typical Series A, B, C startups if you don't have a COO. I actually think a good place for RevOps can be with the CFO. If the CFO is more of a strategic CFO and not an accounting-led CFO because they're the ones who are going to own the corporate planning process, and a big portion of that is fed by revenue operations, and a lot of CFOs have to operate as a COO within an organization too if you don't have one.

## 10:41 — Neutrality equals authority

**[10:41]** So they're really that right hand to the CEO and playing that role. So I think it's a good fit, and what I want to avoid, because let's paint the picture if you have a CRO who's really just a VP of sales, and then you have a CMO over here who's leading marketing, if you put revenue operations with a CRO but they don't own one of the functions, then you're not going to have authority over the process that really connects the whole go-to-market life cycle. So if you put it in a more neutral position with a COO or a CFO, it gives RevOps the authority to look over the whole process, be responsible for the whole process, and really be unbiased

## 11:24 — The typical RevOps roles as you scale

**[11:24]** in which levers you should be pulling. Yeah, that's a great point. I use the word connective tissue, so the connectedness of all those functions, but totally agree. The authority aspect too is huge. So let's assume you have a company that's scaling. You have really well built out sales teams, marketing teams. You have a repeatable, scalable go-to-market motion. What are the typical roles you would see in revenue operations, and what are their responsibilities? Yeah, so we covered two already with the system side of the house. So having a systems owner certainly as your CRM starts to get bigger and you're bringing

**[12:07]** in more tech stack, there may be more than one individual systems owner. So starting to scale out the tech side of the house. Certainly we talked about the leadership aspect and having somebody that's driving things, and we certainly feel like somebody that's manager VP level in RevOps is extremely important. Give them the title that allows them or gives them the authority, we'll use that word again, to be in really strategic meetings and have a seat at the table in those conversations. But then as I start to think, when you keep growing and you keep growing out the revenue

**[12:41]** operations function, then you start to get into more of the reporting and analytics owner. So now you have your strategic leader that's focused on strategic things. They're going to be doing hopefully less of the reporting and analytics and more looking at the reporting and analytics to then bring that into those conversations we talked about. So having somebody that owns the reporting and analytics is looking at the data and is just mainly focused on that is huge and is going to lock a bunch more out of your strategic leader. And then the other big one, which I know we've experienced at former stops that we've worked

## 13:20 — Enablement: the role people miss

**[13:20]** at together and done RevOps at, is the enablement side. Oh, enablement is huge. It's huge. I think people miss that one a lot. 100%. You can be developing the right processes, bringing in the right tech stack, making the right decisions on the tech stack, and not have the enablement portion. And that's where things start to be less useful. You don't get as much of an impact as you may have thought when you were doing your evaluation process on changing process, changing tech, and having someone dedicated to enabling your teams, making them feel comfortable to use new process. It's human nature, right? You get really comfortable.

## 14:00 — Dedicated PMs per function (Series C/D)

**[14:00]** We're averse to change a lot of times. So having somebody that's mainly focused on getting the most out of your different revenue functions, crucial. So that's another one. Then another thing we think as you start to really grow and get down the line in Series C, Series D, and you're starting to really fire, is looking at specific project manager types across the different functions. So across marketing, across sales, across customer success or your account management side of the business, having somebody that's more dedicated into each of those and can really project manage, get feedback from those teams, that then you can feed to your strategic

**[14:40]** leader and start to have those conversations in strategic ways at an executive level, certainly amongst your RevOps team. Those are some of the key ones where you start to step down from, "Hey, you're just your leader and your system's owner. Here's all these other things that is going to make your revenue operations team great." Yeah, and I think they have the opportunity to dive deep in the details. If you're bringing on PMs dedicated to sales, like I'm revenue operations for sales, revenue operations for marketing, and if you have that role, you have an opportunity to really

**[15:18]** dive deep and look holistically within that function, but then still have a team that owns systems and general processes. So you're not implementing something that's not going to be fully aligned with the rest of the revenue operation, but you do have that dedication to get into the detail. I like that a lot. I think it makes sense. So let's just recap. I think Genesis of RevOps for most companies typically comes out of a system's need. So you'll have a VP of sales trying to put the systems together, and it's just frankly not a good use of their time. Shortly after, you're going to need somebody more strategic.

## 15:38 — Recap: Genesis, roles, and where it reports

**[15:55]** Look over the whole system, think strategically about how to build the business and build out the reporting infrastructure, build out the enablement infrastructure, and as you continue to grow, you'll throw in those other roles of PMs. And then deciding where the whole function sits, well, depends who you have on your executive team. If you have a true CRO, somebody who's dedicated and has the authority over the entire go-to-market life cycle, that's where RevOps should live. A lot of companies don't. So if you don't, look for another neutral executive, potentially a COO or a CFO, and that's going to be a good place for it to live.

**[16:33]** Cam, thank you so much. Appreciate you diving into it with me and looking forward to the next one. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this episode. If you liked the discussion, please like, share, and subscribe to wherever you listen to podcasts so you never miss a new episode.