Phil Gray

Many HR and people ops leaders are dealing with the same tension: they’re expected to build great culture and develop their teams while also hitting hard business targets, and there’s rarely a clear playbook for doing both at once. I’ve spent nearly two decades leading operations and people functions in high-growth technology companies, helping organizations scale without losing the systems and culture that make them successful.

As COO at Black & White Zebra, I oversee people operations, talent development, succession planning, and the overall employee experience alongside finance, business operations, and strategic planning. My focus is on building the operating systems, organizational structures, and people practices that enable high-performing teams.

At Black & White Zebra, I built the People Operations function from the ground up while scaling the company from a smaller startup to $20M+ revenue over three years. Before that, at Thinkific, I led operational readiness for their IPO and built out cross-functional business operations during a period of organizational growth. At Procurify, I served as a strategic partner to the CEO through a $20M Series B raise and led organizational design initiatives that doubled ACV.

I hold an MBA from the University of British Columbia with a focus on Product and Services Management, as well as a BA from the University of Victoria.

My Areas of Expertise:

• Strategic planning
• Data analysis
• Resource Planning

More About Me:

Outside work, I’m an avid reader, home cook, traveler, and hobby game developer. Building games has become a fun way to experiment with product design and AI-assisted development.

I’ve also advised startups and growing businesses across software, manufacturing, healthcare, media, and consumer products, giving me exposure to a broad range of operating models and leadership challenges. I think it’s given me a bigger toolkit and broadened my experience and knowledge of a wide variety of business challenges and strategies. I’m as comfortable talking software development and media as I am manufacturing and supply chain centric businesses.

What’s in My Tech Stack:

• ERPs, Finance, & HRIS: SAP, Oracle, Workday, Runway, Rippling
• AI & Automation: n8n, Claude, Codex, Cursor, Lovable
• Business Intelligence & Analytics: Google Data Studio, Google Analytics, Tableau, Salesforce Marketing Cloud
• Database: SQL Reporting, Supabase
• CRM & Marketing: Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho, Gainsight, Zendesk, Outreach, Gong
• SEO & AEO: Ahrefs, SEMrush, Google Search Console
• Productivity: Jira/Confluence, Asana, Trello, Slack, Microsoft Teams