The Qualities That Lead to Success at Oceans

You can explain complex ideas simply, ask thoughtful questions, and adapt your communication style across clients, teams, and time zones. In a remote-first environment, clarity isn’t optional - it’s essential for success.

You approach problems logically, break them down into manageable parts, and make sound decisions even when information is incomplete. You don’t just execute tasks - you think critically about why and how things should be done.

You manage your time well, show up prepared, and follow through on commitments. You’re self-directed, organised, and dependable, the kind of person clients trust without constant oversight.

You actively seek feedback, learn quickly, and adapt to new tools, industries, and ways of working. You see challenges as opportunities to sharpen your skills and expand your impact.

You’re not here for a short-term gig. You’re looking to build depth, credibility, and momentum over time - and you value environments that invest in your growth just as seriously.

You take ownership. When faced with ambiguity, you don’t wait to be told what to do - you assess the situation, propose solutions, and move things forward with confidence.

Level 0: The Underperformer

Operating at Level 0 indicates an immediate need for improvement to be or remain part of the Oceans community.

• Qualities: Reactive, disorganized, and technically hesitant.

• Behavior: Fails to maintain a structured calendar, misses deadlines, and struggles with the basic tech tools required for the role.

• Impact: Causes confusion or reputational risk through unclear communication and performs tasks without understanding the business goals or context.

Level 1: The Reliable Contributor

A Level 1 AOS demonstrates a solid foundational understanding of their role and active participation in the team.

• Qualities: Disciplined, professional, and coachable.

• Behavior: Schedules meetings as instructed, completes tasks on time using a basic tracker, and uses core tech tools confidently.

• Impact: Communicates clearly with stakeholders using provided templates and asks clarifying questions to stay aligned with client priorities.

Level 2: The Proactive Driver

Level 2 reflects a professional who takes ownership and drives measurable benefits for their function.

• Qualities: Independent, priority-focused, and tech-savvy.

• Behavior: Proactively manages calendars based on competing demands, maintains evolved task boards, and adopts new tools to improve workflows.

• Impact: Independently manages logistics and tone-aligned communication while flagging potential misalignments between workstreams and goals.

Level 3: The Strategic Expert

Level 3 reflects consistent excellence and the ability to influence the organization at a high level.

• Qualities: Strategic partner, confident representative, and technical enabler.

• Behavior: Owns the calendar as a strategic asset, builds complex project plans with minimal oversight, and optimizes tech stacks for team efficiency.

• Impact: Acts as a high-stakes thought partner who anticipates strategic risks, builds trusted external relationships, and manages alignment across functions.

Level 0: The Underperformer

Operating at Level 0 indicates an immediate need for improvement to be or remain part of the Oceans community.

• Qualities: Inconsistent, reactive, and often works in isolation.

• Behavior: Performs tasks without following established processes and struggles with basic data collection or reporting.

• Impact: Requires significant guidance to contribute to discussions and fails to keep stakeholders informed.

Level 1: The Reliable Contributor

A Level 1 BOS demonstrates a solid foundational understanding of their role and active participation in the team.

• Qualities: Reliable, attentive, and collaborative when prompted.

• Behavior: Follows existing processes accurately, uses checklists, and produces clear (if basic) documentation and reports.

• Impact: Recognizes minor inefficiencies and proposes data-supported improvements linked to strategic goals.

Level 2: The Proactive Driver

Level 2 reflects a professional who takes ownership and drives measurable benefits for their function.

• Qualities: Proactive, competent, and a relationship-builder.

• Behavior: Independently identifies process improvements, excels at trend analysis, and crafts stakeholder-appropriate communications.

• Impact: Leads discussions on strategy, implements innovative solutions, and mentors others in process and modeling connections.

Level 3: The Strategic Expert

Level 3 reflects consistent excellence and the ability to influence the organization at a high level.

• Qualities: Visionary, authoritative, and a mentor.

• Behavior: Leads major process redesigns, implements new analytical tools, and develops comprehensive communication strategies.

• Impact: Creates long-term roadmaps that influence organizational strategy, manages complex cross-functional conflicts, and presents insights directly to senior leadership.

Level 0: The Underperformer

Operating at Level 0 indicates an immediate need for improvement to be or remain part of the Oceans community.

• Qualities: Reactive, disorganized, and lacks business context.

• Behavior: Fails to follow existing processes, misses project deadlines, and passes along raw information without analysis or context.

• Impact: Creates friction or noise for leadership, misrepresents the company tone, and slows down team alignment through poor information sharing.

Level 1: The Reliable Contributor

A Level 1 COS demonstrates a solid foundational understanding of their role and active participation in the team.

• Qualities: Task-oriented, communicative, and helpful.

• Behavior: Executes defined project tasks with guidance, follows documented processes reliably, and shares updates when prompted.

• Impact: Understands core revenue streams, assists with internal messaging under direction, and compiles relevant data into single sources for others to interpret.

Level 2: The Proactive Driver

Level 2 reflects a professional who takes ownership and drives measurable coordination across the business.

• Qualities: Independent, analytical, and an operational optimizer.

• Behavior: Manages entire projects with minimal oversight, improves existing processes to solve pain points, and maintains centralized trackers for OKRs or decisions.

• Impact: Highlights financial trends or anomalies, independently manages all-hands logistics, and produces concise briefs that highlight key trade-offs and risks.

Level 3: The Strategic Expert

Level 3 reflects consistent excellence and the ability to influence organizational strategy at a high level.

• Qualities: Strategic visionary, complex problem-solver, and a steward of culture.

• Behavior: Builds business models to inform high-level planning, owns complex cross-functional projects end-to-end, and designs scalable operational systems from scratch.

• Impact: Drives the internal communications strategy, delivers executive-ready decision briefs with clear recommendations, and ensures the entire organization feels clear on priorities.

Level 0: The Underperformer

Operating at Level 0 indicates an immediate need for improvement to be or remain part of the Oceans community.

• Qualities: Inconsistent, reactive, and technically unskilled with core tools like Canva or Figma.

• Behavior: Frequently applies wrong brand colors or fonts, ignores platform-specific format specs, and publishes content without reviewing analytics.

• Impact: Produces content in isolation without understanding the broader narrative and requires constant reminders regarding brand guidelines.

Level 1: The Reliable Contributor

A Level 1 CMS demonstrates a solid foundational understanding of their role and active participation in the team.

• Qualities: Compliant, observant, and capable of basic execution.

• Behavior: Corrects and applies existing templates, reformats creatives for platform compliance, and posts content based on a prepared calendar.

• Impact: Maintains brand tone when given direct instructions and tracks basic engagement metrics like likes or comments.

Level 2: The Proactive Driver

Level 2 reflects a professional who takes ownership and drives measurable engagement for the brand.

• Qualities: Independent, adaptable, and collaborative.

• Behavior: Adapts templates for new campaigns, customizes visuals for specific channels (e.g., TikTok vs. LinkedIn), and runs A/B tests for creatives.

• Impact: Proactively suggests content themes that enhance storytelling and uses performance insights to refine future assets.

Level 3: The Strategic Expert

Level 3 reflects creative excellence and the ability to influence brand strategy at a high level.

• Qualities: Visionary, mentor, and performance-driven.

• Behavior: Defines brand kits and design systems, directs high-visibility video and visual production, and builds integrated frameworks for multi-channel creative strategies.

• Impact: Owns the narrative development across all mediums, aligns organic engagement tactics with funnel goals, and ties creative changes directly to revenue impact.

Level 0: The Underperformer

Operating at Level 0 indicates an immediate need for improvement to be or remain part of the Oceans community.

• Qualities: Passive, reactive, and lacks a grasp of underlying business drivers.

• Behavior: Updates dashboards with actuals without modifying logic and collects forecast inputs without assessing assumptions or reconciling data.

• Impact: Relies heavily on templates without understanding investment drivers and participates in meetings primarily as an observer or scribe.

Level 1: The Reliable Contributor

A Level 1 FAS demonstrates a solid foundational understanding of their role and active participation in the team.

• Qualities: Disciplined, accurate, and supportive.

• Behavior: Produces recurring reports independently with basic variance commentary and builds simple financial models like P&L projections or DCFs.

• Impact: Explains financial impacts to non-finance stakeholders and flags clear discrepancies in forecasts to ensure alignment with business drivers.

Level 2: The Proactive Driver

Level 2 reflects a professional who takes ownership and drives meaningful financial insight for their business unit.

• Qualities: Analytical, influential, and a collaborative partner.

• Behavior: Designs tailored dashboards, leads forecasting cycles while challenging unrealistic assumptions, and develops advanced multi-scenario models.

• Impact: Evaluates opportunities using metrics like IRR and NPV, builds strong relationships with leaders to shape tactical decisions, and models complex scenarios to clarify long-term impact.

Level 3: The Strategic Expert

Level 3 reflects consistent excellence and the ability to influence organizational strategy at a high level.

• Qualities: Visionary advisor, authoritative, and a driver of enterprise value.

• Behavior: Implements enterprise-level tools like Power BI, sets methodologies like zero-based budgeting, and establishes organization-wide modeling best practices.

• Impact: Acts as a trusted advisor to the board, leads complex evaluations such as M&A, and runs executive meetings to align business objectives with high-level financial goals.

Level 0: The Underperformer

Operating at Level 0 indicates an immediate need for improvement to be or remain part of the Oceans community.

• Qualities: Reactive, reliant on supervision, and lacks attention to detail.

• Behavior: Requires checklists for basic data entry, completes reconciliations with guidance while missing small entries, and struggles to identify process or system gaps.

• Impact: Runs standard reports without interpretation, forgets to update payment timing, and needs help organizing data for audits.

Level 1: The Reliable Contributor

A Level 1 FOS demonstrates a solid foundational understanding of their role and active participation in the team.

• Qualities: Independent with routines, observant, and technically competent.

• Behavior: Processes routine invoices independently, performs close entries accurately, and flags errors caused by data mapping or sync issues.

• Impact: Produces reports with basic variance notes, highlights cash flow concerns, and confidently walks auditors through documentation.

Level 2: The Proactive Driver

Level 2 reflects a professional who takes ownership and drives operational efficiency for the finance function.

• Qualities: Proactive, investigative, and a process improver.

• Behavior: Coordinates full AP/AR cycles without reminders, automates reconciliations or integrations, and leads full month-end close, including accruals and reclasses.

• Impact: Models multi-week cash flow, manages full audit cycles to close all findings, and delivers meaningful variance analysis to recommend improvements.

Level 3: The Strategic Expert

Level 3 reflects consistent excellence and the ability to influence organizational strategy at a high level.

• Qualities: Authoritative, strategic, and a technical leader.

• Behavior: Redesigns workflows to improve transaction accuracy, defines and enforces close timelines, and leads company-wide ERP upgrades or automation rollouts.

• Impact: Advises leadership on enterprise control frameworks, defines global cash strategies, and shapes reporting frameworks to drive strategic influence.

Level 0: The Underperformer

Operating at Level 0 indicates an immediate need for improvement to be or remain part of the Oceans community.

• Qualities: Reactive, disorganized, and technically unfamiliar with core acquisition or analytics platforms.

• Behavior: Posts content without planning, cannot explain platform selection for ads, and struggles to identify why users drop off a website.

• Impact: Adds noise instead of clarity by failing to connect marketing activities to broader business goals or actionable data.

Level 1: The Reliable Contributor

A Level 1 MOS demonstrates a solid foundational understanding of their role and active participation in the team.

• Qualities: Task-oriented, observant, and capable of basic execution.

• Behavior: Follows a prepared content calendar, launches ads from a provided brief, and pulls standard reports from GA4.

• Impact: Correctly applies brand guidelines to assets and executes simple email flows using provided templates.

Level 2: The Proactive Driver

Level 2 reflects a professional who takes ownership and drives measurable efficiency across the marketing funnel.

• Qualities: Independent, analytical, and an operational optimizer.

• Behavior: Builds content calendars from scratch based on funnel stages, manages campaigns across at least three paid platforms, and defines hypotheses for A/B testing.

• Impact: Adapts messaging for different audiences and combines performance data from multiple channels to propose tactical improvements.

Level 3: The Strategic Expert

Level 3 reflects consistent excellence and the ability to influence organizational strategy at a high level.

• Qualities: Strategic visionary, technical architect, and mentor.

• Behavior: Leads integrated organic strategies across content and SEO, designs multi-channel paid frameworks, and builds complex automation flows based on behavioral triggers.

• Impact: Owns the CRO roadmap, defines brand positioning, and shares high-level insights with leadership to drive strategic decision-making.