Chief Operating Officer (COO)

At a glance

• Reports to: Group CEO
• Client-facing? No this is an internal, cross-functional leadership role
• Direct reports: None initially. Authority comes from an explicit Group CEO mandate to own end-to-end process, not from a position in the line-management chart
• Works closely with: CEO North America, CEO UK, CTO, CRO, Head of Projects, Client Operations Manager, Financial Manager, Head of Automation
• Role type: Full-time, permanent, Group-wide (US / UK operations)

What you will do
Operational excellence:

• Own and maintain the end-to-end cross-functional process map, resolving ambiguity in ownership rather than leaving it unresolved.
• Oversee the health of core handoffs: sales to delivery, sales to projects, project-to-BAU handover, support to commercial, and commercial to finance.
• Provide process oversight of Procurement's seams with other functions and review regional-to-Group process consistency between the US and UK.
• Act as the escalation point for unresolved systemic cross-functional issues, once normal functional escalation paths have been exhausted.

Client experience and retention:

• Monitor handoff health as a leading indicator of client experience, correlating process friction with sentiment and churn-risk signals.
• Identify structural, non-account-specific drivers of retention risk and partner with the regional CEOs and account teams to fix root causes.
• Confirm that fixes to recurring client-experience issues are durable and structural, not one-off account saves.

Scalability and growth:

• Design processes and playbooks that scale cleanly as headcount, client base, and regional footprint grow.
• Consolidate cross-functional forecasting capacity, onboarding pipeline, and growth trajectory to flag structural scaling risk ahead of demand.
• Own the operating-model implications of entering new regions, service lines, or client segments.
• Standardise onboarding, handover, and QBR processes so growth does not multiply operational complexity.

Leadership alignment and reporting:

• Build and maintain a genuine working partnership with every functional Head of Department.
• Chair a standing cross-functional forum bringing together the leads on each side of the core handoffs.
• Report on handoff health, client-experience patterns, and growth-readiness to the Group CEO on an agreed cadence.
• Escalate material structural risk, or any proposed change to the confirmed role structure, to the Group CEO.

Automation and AI opportunity identification:

• Work with the Head of Automation to identify where automation or AI could remove friction at the handoffs you own.
• Prioritise candidate areas for the Automation team jointly, based on process health data and handoff friction.
• Review outcomes of automation initiatives against the handoff-health metrics you already track.

What this role is not

• Regional leadership: Regional P&L, budget, and business planning sit with the CEO North America and CEO UK.
• Client relationships: Individual client relationships and account-level accountability sit with the CAM / TAM.
• Service delivery: Ticket queue management and engineer line management sit with the Head of Service, SDM, and TTL / ETL.
• Project delivery: Project execution and the client relationship during an active project sit with the Head of Projects and PM.
• Procurement execution: Vendor negotiation and purchasing decisions sit with the Procurement team; your role is process oversight of its seams with other functions only.
• Financial control: Invoicing execution and statutory reporting sit with the Financial Manager.
• Automation build: Tooling selection and technical delivery of automation sit with the Head of Automation.
• Line management: This role has no direct reports and does not sit in any function's reporting chain.

What the company is looking for:
Essential:

• 10+ years of senior operations leadership experience, ideally including time as a COO or in an equivalent scaling-executive role.
• A demonstrated track record designing and owning cross-functional operating models spanning sales, delivery, and finance.
• Strong process design capability, with a data-driven approach to forecasting capacity, demand, and growth.
• Comfortable operating through influence rather than direct authority you build alignment through relationships and evidence, not instruction.
• A track record of building genuine, trusted working relationships with peer department heads and senior stakeholders.
• Excellent structured reporting and communication skills, comfortable presenting to Group CEO and executive-level audiences.
• Comfortable working across US and UK regions and time zones.

Advantageous:

• Experience in a managed services, IT services, or MSP environment.
• Experience scaling a business through a material increase in headcount, client base, or regional footprint.
• Familiarity with PSA tooling (such as AutoTask) or similar operational platforms.
• Experience partnering with automation or AI teams to drive process improvement.
• Formal training or qualifications in operations management or process excellence (e.g. Lean, Six Sigma).

Who You'll Work With
Every relationship below is a peer partnership, not a reporting line. Your effectiveness will depend on being seen by each Head of Department as a genuine collaborator who understands their function:

• Group CEO: Your direct line manager, and escalation point for material structural risk or any proposed change to the confirmed role structure.
• CEO North America / CEO UK: Regional P&L and operational execution remain fully with them; your interest is limited to where regional process diverges, or a handoff crosses the US / UK boundary.
• CTO: Technical delivery and service reporting lines remain with the CTO; your interest is the seams where engineering and service delivery hand off to projects or commercial functions.
• CRO: New business ownership remains with the CRO; you own the quality of the sales-to-delivery and sales-to-projects handoff.
• Head of projects: Project execution remains with the Head of Projects; you monitor the project-to-BAU handover gate.
• Client operations manager: Procurement continues to report to Client Operations; your interest in Procurement is process oversight of its seams only.
• Financial manager: Financial control and reporting remain with the Financial Manager; your interest is the accuracy and cycle time of the commercial-to-finance handoff.
• Head of automation: You identify and prioritise automation opportunities together; the Automation team owns tooling selection, build, and delivery.