Chief Operating Officer (COO)

SUMMARY:
Our client is looking for a Chief Operating Officer to bring structure, accountability, and process discipline to the business as it scales. This is a newly created, Group-wide role reporting directly to the Group CEO, sitting alongside the regional CEOs and functional Heads of Department as a peer — not above them in the reporting line.
 
You will not run a single function. Instead, you will own the seams between functions: the handoffs where sales meets delivery, delivery meets projects, support meets commercial, and commercial meets finance. Your job is to make sure work, information, and accountability transfer cleanly at every one of those points, and that the operating model in place today is still the right one when the company is materially larger.
 
This is a role built on influence rather than authority. There are no direct reports in this first stage — your effectiveness will come from the strength of your working relationships with every Head of Department, and from being seen as a genuine partner to their function, not an auditor checking up on it.

POSITION INFO:
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.