6 Fractional COO Strategies From a Former Manager at Uber
Fractional COO Daphne Pham on scaling Uber Vietnam, leading Binance through crypto winter, and building VENUE Fragrances.
June 5th, 2026
Daphne Pham has spent more than a decade helping companies navigate growth in fast-moving, highly regulated, and often unpredictable markets.
She was the first Uber employee in Vietnam, helping launch and scale the ride-sharing giant in a new market. She later led strategy for Binance across Asia during the crypto winter and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School along the way. Today, she's building VENUE, a luxury fragrance brand that blends cultural storytelling with product innovation.
Now exploring fractional COO work, Pham brings a unique perspective on what it takes to navigate transitions and keep organizations moving forward when the path ahead isn't always clear. We sat down with her to discuss scaling businesses, leading through chaos, and the lessons she's carrying from global tech companies into entrepreneurship.
1. Give Great Talent Room to Grow
When Pham joined Uber Vietnam in 2014, there was no blueprint. No local entity. No established playbook. The team was small, young, and operating in completely uncharted territory, but they were trusted to figure it out.
"What shocked me the most wasn't just the pace at Uber, but it was how much autonomy we were given," she said. "We were given a lot of responsibility and full ownership to launch and scale the business ... There was no HQ micromanagement, just an immense amount of trust."
For an example: During her first week, Pham used her mom's credit card to buy 50 iPhones for drivers because the company didn't have a local account yet. She remembers her mom calling in a panic, convinced Pham had joined a scam.
That level of autonomy shaped how Pham thinks about leadership today. The formula is simple: hire the right people, inspire them with purpose, and get out of their way. As Pham put it, "that combination is what makes the impossible feel very doable."
2. Some of The Best Ideas Start Locally
In 2015, Vietnam became the first market in Southeast Asia to launch cash payments on Uber. The problem was that the product team in San Francisco was against it; the frictionless, walletless experience was core brand DNA. But credit card penetration in Vietnam was in the low single digits. Without cash, Uber would lose to local competitors.
It took a lot of pushing and hard data to get the green light, but when Pham's team did, it unlocked massive growth---not just in Vietnam but across developing markets like India and the Middle East. An innovation that HQ never would have imagined became part of the global playbook.
3. Commit to "Radical Clarity"
Pham joined Binance during one of the most volatile periods in crypto history, starting on the day of the LUNA crash and operating through the broader crypto winter. Leading teams across countries during that level of uncertainty required a very different kind of leadership.
Instead of pretending to have all the answers, Pham adopted an approach she calls radical clarity: "over-communicating what I know, what I don't know, and what I think we should do next." That meant frequent check-ins, honest conversations about uncertainty, and clear prioritization around what the team could control.
"What they need is actually, momentum, clarity, and autonomy," Pham said, "and the feeling of being empowered and trusted to make an impact even when things are in chaos."
4. Building From Zero Requires a Different Mindset
After years of scaling other companies, Pham encountered an entirely new challenge when launching her own initiative, VENUE: There was no customer base, operating structure, or market validation to work from.
For someone trained in analytical thinking and pattern recognition, that shift was uncomfortable at first. That's when Pham learned that zero-to-one work relies heavily on conviction. When you're creating something from scratch, the most valuable asset isn't data or frameworks. It's your point of view and your ability to believe in it before the market does.
5. Luxury Brands Need Stories, Not Just Products
With VENUE, Pham saw an opportunity to challenge how luxury fragrance brands traditionally position themselves. Most luxury fragrance narratives center around European heritage and craftsmanship. Pham wanted to build something different: a luxury brand that elevated Asia as a cultural origin point, not just a sourcing market.
For Pham, fragrance became more than a product category; it became a medium for emotional storytelling. The goal wasn't simply to sell perfume, but to create a sensory experience tied to identity, culture, and personal memory.
6. Fractional Work Can Be a Long-Term Career Strategy
Pham views fractional work as a natural extension of the career she's already built: operating across industries, markets, and high-growth environments. That's why, while she's building VENUE, she still wants to stay engaged with other companies where she can add real value.
"I think that the future of work is going to change so much," she said. "The reason why I'm drawn to [a portfolio career] is probably because of flexibility. Going fractional can allow me to apply everything I've learned from scaling other companies but in a way that feels more focused and in high leverage."
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