| Detail | For this role |
|---|---|
| Department | Operations |
| Level | Senior management |
| Reports to | Chief Executive Officer |
| Direct reports | Operations Manager, Regional Operations Manager, Business Operations Manager, Process Improvement Manager |
| Experience | 10 to 15 years in operations, including building or scaling a team in a growing company |
Head of Operations job description template
Copy this job description, replace the text in square brackets and post it on your careers page or a job portal.
Job title: Head of Operations
Department: Operations
Reports to: Chief Executive Officer
Location: [City], [office, branch or site]
About the role
A Head of Operations is the senior-most operations leader in a mid-sized company or startup, reporting directly to the CEO or founders. The role builds and runs the processes that deliver the product or service every day: fulfilment, service delivery, vendor partners, quality and the teams behind them. A good Head of Operations makes the business ready to scale, with unit costs falling as volume rises and fewer fires reaching the founders.
Key responsibilities
- Design the end-to-end operating model for the product or service, from order or request intake to delivery and after-sales support.
- Write or approve the SOPs, escalation matrix and service levels for every operations team, and revise them when the business model changes.
- Track unit economics such as cost per order, cost per delivery or cost per service ticket, and run projects to bring them down.
- Hire and structure the operations team as the company grows, deciding when to add managers, regions or shifts.
- Select and manage outsourced partners such as logistics providers, field service agencies or call centres, with SLAs and penalty clauses.
- Plan capacity with sales and marketing for launches, sale events and seasonal peaks, so every promise made to customers can be delivered.
- Set up operations dashboards and a weekly review rhythm with the founders and department heads.
- Own customer escalations that cross teams, and fix the underlying process rather than only the single case.
- Work with product and technology teams on tools that remove manual steps, and define the operations requirements for each one.
- Prepare operations inputs for fundraising, board meetings and investor due diligence.
Requirements
- Graduate in any discipline, often engineering or commerce
- MBA from a recognised institute is an advantage
- Lean or Six Sigma training is an advantage
- 10 to 15 years in operations, including building or scaling a team in a growing company
KRAs and KPIs for a Head of Operations
Key result areas for the appraisal form, each with a KPI you can measure every month or quarter.
| Key result area | How to measure it |
|---|---|
| Unit economics | Cost per order or per service ticket reduced by 10 percent in the year |
| Service level | SLA met on 95 percent or more of orders or tickets each month |
| Scalability | Operations able to handle twice the current volume without a new process failure |
| Founder escalations | Escalations reaching the founders reduced month on month |
| Partner performance | Every outsourced partner scored monthly, with non-performers replaced within one quarter |
| Team and SOP coverage | Key operations roles filled within 45 days and a documented SOP for every process |
Skills and tools
Tools used day to day: Google Sheets or Excel, Metabase, Looker Studio or Power BI, Ticketing tool such as Freshdesk or Zoho Desk, Order or field service management system, Slack or Microsoft Teams.
Reporting line and career path
Next roles: Vice President Operations, Chief Operating Officer
Interview questions for a Head of Operations
- How would you calculate our cost per order, and which three levers would you pull first to reduce it?
- Tell me about a process you designed from scratch. What broke when volume doubled?
- A logistics partner misses SLA for the third month running. What do you do?
- What would your first 90 days look like in a company with no written SOPs?
- How do you say no to founders when a promised launch date is not operationally possible?
- Which operations metrics would you review daily, weekly and monthly, and why?
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What does a Head of Operations do in a startup?
In a startup the Head of Operations turns a working idea into a repeatable machine. They design processes, write SOPs, hire the operations team, manage delivery and service partners, track cost per order or ticket and plan capacity for growth. They report to the founders and usually own every customer-facing process that is not sales or product.
What is the difference between Head of Operations and COO?
A COO is a C-level executive who often runs several functions and deputises for the CEO. A Head of Operations leads the operations function itself and is common in mid-sized companies and startups that do not yet have a COO. As the company grows, the Head of Operations may report to a new COO or become one.
What skills does a Head of Operations need?
The core skills are process design, unit economics, capacity planning, partner management and hiring. Just as important are judgment about what to fix first, the ability to say no to unrealistic promises, and comfort with data. Most successful heads of operations have run a team through at least one period of rapid growth.