| Detail | For this role |
|---|---|
| Department | Operations |
| Level | Senior management |
| Reports to | Chief Operating Officer |
| Direct reports | AVP Operations, General Manager Operations, Business Excellence Manager |
| Experience | 15 to 20 years in operations, with 6 years leading leaders across regions or business lines |
Vice President 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: Vice President Operations
Department: Operations
Reports to: Chief Operating Officer
Location: [City], [office, branch or site]
About the role
A Vice President Operations leads operations across several business lines or regions and reports to the COO or CEO. The VP sets the operating model, targets and budget, and leads a team of AVPs and general managers who run the units. The role is judged on whether operations support the company's growth at a cost the business can afford, with risk and customer experience under control.
Key responsibilities
- Own the operations section of the annual operating plan, including volume assumptions, cost targets, capital needs and headcount.
- Define the operating model: which activities run centrally, which run in regions and which go to outsourced partners.
- Set targets for each AVP and general manager and review them monthly in a structured business review.
- Approve large operations spend, vendor contracts and hiring beyond budget within the delegation of authority.
- Chair the operations risk review covering process failures, fraud events, safety incidents and audit ratings.
- Sponsor enterprise programs such as automation, shared services consolidation or new system rollouts, and remove blockers for program teams.
- Represent operations to the CEO, board committees, key customers and regulators when needed.
- Agree trade-offs between service levels and cost with sales, product and finance leaders.
- Lead talent reviews for operations leadership, including succession, rotation and hiring of senior managers.
- Shape the culture of the operations function: how problems are escalated, how data is used and how people are recognised.
Requirements
- Graduate in any stream, most often engineering or commerce
- MBA or PGDM from a recognised institute
- Six Sigma Black Belt or PMP is an advantage
- 15 to 20 years in operations, with 6 years leading leaders across regions or business lines
KRAs and KPIs for a Vice President 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 |
|---|---|
| Operating plan | Operations targets in the annual operating plan achieved at 95 percent or more |
| Cost efficiency | Operations cost per unit of revenue reduced by 3 to 5 percent year on year |
| Customer experience | Customer complaints and service failures below plan in every quarter |
| Operational risk | Every high-severity risk event has a closed corrective action within 60 days |
| Transformation benefits | Enterprise operations programs deliver at least 80 percent of planned benefits in the year |
| Leadership talent | Ready successors identified for at least two thirds of AVP and GM roles |
Skills and tools
Tools used day to day: ERP and BI dashboards, Annual operating plan models, Risk and control registers, Program management dashboards, Board presentation templates.
Reporting line and career path
Next roles: Senior Vice President, Chief Operating Officer, Director Operations
Interview questions for a Vice President Operations
- What would you centralise and what would you leave with the regions in a multi-state operations setup?
- Tell me about a transformation program you sponsored that ran into trouble. What did you do as sponsor?
- How do you settle the cost versus service trade-off when finance and sales disagree?
- What does your monthly business review with AVPs look like, and how long does it take?
- How do you judge whether an AVP is ready to take over your role?
- Describe a high-severity risk event in your operations and how you explained it to the board.
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What does a Vice President Operations do?
A Vice President Operations leads operations across several business lines or regions. They own the operations part of the annual plan, define what runs centrally or regionally, set targets for AVPs and general managers, approve large spends, chair risk reviews and sponsor transformation programs. They usually report to the COO or CEO.
What is the difference between VP Operations and AVP Operations?
An AVP Operations runs one large vertical or function within operations and focuses on its turnaround, quality, controls and cost. A VP Operations sits above several AVPs or general managers, owns the operating model and budget for the whole function, and spends more time on strategy, risk oversight and leadership talent.
Who does a VP Operations report to?
In most Indian companies a VP Operations reports to the Chief Operating Officer. Where there is no COO, the VP reports to the CEO or managing director. In MNC subsidiaries there is often a dotted line to a regional or global operations leader as well.