As part of the Meet the COO series, the Operations Council recently interviewed Charles Mayfield, Chief Operating Officer (COO) for Chicago Public Schools (CPS) the fourth-largest school district with 800+ sites, over 43K employees, and a $9B budget. Charles’ role involves Facilities, IT, Nutrition, Procurement, Safety/Security, and Transportation. Prior roles included Executive Director/Chief Procurement Officer for CPS, and Assistant Director Procurement for the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA), and 24-years in the United States Air Force. Charles earned an MBA and Bachelor of Science- Business degrees from Southern Illinois University, along with executive education at Northwestern University and University of Chicago.Charles serves on the board of the Illinois Association of Public Procurement Officials (IAPPO), and is active with the Kindness Campaign, Children’s First Fund (CFF), the Council of the Great City Schools (CGCS), and the Association of School Business Officials (ASBO).

Following are questions from moderator Neil Brown, and answers from Charles Mayfield. If you are interested in learning more, view the full interview video archive here.

Tell us about your career path.

I have a 24-year career within the United States Air Force. That was a really invigorating opportunity for me where I really learned process procedures and grounded me as a person. I was an air crew member. So, I flew on quite a bit of planes and was able to meet people of leadership that encouraged extended learning, which I think is really important just to go beyond high school and to be able to go back to college. While I was still in the Air Force and a little bit of Air Force reserves, I took my career over to the private sector and had a couple of private sector jobs. The one that was influential to me was working at Aldi Foods, where I was a district manager, where I oversaw several stores to be able to look at their operations, process, procedures, and sales. Following that career path, I went over to the public sector where I had two rounds with Chicago Public Schools, which is where I am today, and then a round with Chicago Housing Authority. In those roles, I was overseeing the procurement and contracts. And it gives you an opportunity to work with suppliers and internal stakeholders to negotiate the many things that you need outside of just cost itself, but, you know, value added goods or value-added services. That role really ignited me for chief operating officer role because you learn the entire organization through what people buy, through what people spend their money on.

What are your primary roles and responsibilities as COO of CPS?

As the Chief Operating Officer, I oversee several departments, but it’s really about the team. And I always say I work for the people who report to me, and I have a few departments that really oversee the entire operations of the organization, such as, you know, facility management, nutrition, safety and security, transportation, procurement, and technology. And with these responsibilities, it’s obviously important because it’s the ecosystem on how we drive or support schools with the information that is needed for teachers and students to be able to get the job done and to be able to do some of the core things, like transportation.

Share some of the most interesting aspects of your job.

I think the most interesting thing about my job is that every day is different, from what you experience in an urban within the urban school district being as large as we are. It’s also about community and being able to hear from the stakeholders within the community of how they feel or their experiences within the school district in itself, where not only themselves, but their families.

What have been some of the most significant keys to your success?

Listening: I often have conversations, not only with the community members, but my internal staff and some of my vendors. And, everyone has a great idea, so to be successful, I have to be a listening figure to them to be able to get them what they need. And in most cases, I’m able to do that within my role to be able to provide that clarification to families or to my stakeholders, whether it be good or bad, right? Because in some cases, you can’t satisfy everyone.

What advice would you give others that seek an operations or COO career?

I would say the advice that I would give is find your purpose. And for me, my purpose is a self-servant, servant of pretty much the community of the district of the city of Chicago. And that’s what I really enjoy. And I tie that with operations because again, operations oversees essentially everything of an organization of how it works, the details that are behind it and the meaning that’s behind it. My advice would always be once you identify your purpose in life, go pursue that. And if you’re looking for the COO career, I would always say, start at ground zero. Start with how an organization works. Again, my path was procurement. That’s not to say that that’s everyone else’s path, but that was a good start for me to be able to understand that if people spend money. They have to figure out how to spend it, and with that, they also have to get the money from somewhere. So, for me, asking all the right questions, the five whys, was able to get me to a place where I really understood how the organization operated, which led me to this career.

To learn more, view the full interview here.