COO-in-Residence

AINAD is looking for a COO-in-Residence to build the operating systems that power our AI-native, tech-enabled ventures and to shape how we run venture creation and scaling across the studio.

About AINAD: AINAD is a UK-based venture studio that builds and scales AI and SaaS companies across sectors such as health, education, fintech and productivity. We act as a hands-on co-founder to our ventures, providing product, engineering, growth, capital and operations support so they can move from concept to scale faster and with more discipline.

The Role: As COO-in-Residence, you are the senior operator across the studio. You’ll work directly with selected portfolio companies as an embedded / fractional COO, while also defining the operating playbook for AINAD itself. This is not a narrow “single company” ops role; it’s a strategist–operator position for someone who loves turning strategy into repeatable execution across multiple startups. It’s ideal for a senior operator (COO, VP Operations, General Manager, Chief of Staff+Ops) who wants to apply their operating experience across several early-stage ventures instead of just one organisation.

What You’ll Do:

• Define and refine AINAD’s operating playbook: planning cadences, OKRs, weekly/monthly rhythms, KPI dashboards and review rituals.
• Act as a senior operating partner for selected ventures, especially from zero-to-one through early scale.
• Translate strategy into clear execution plans – priorities, milestones, owners, timelines and dependencies.
• Establish lightweight but robust processes for cross-functional collaboration across product, engineering, growth, finance and ops.
• Set up and improve operating rhythms: stand-ups, leadership meetings, sprint/launch planning, retrospectives and performance reviews.
• Identify and resolve operational bottlenecks that slow ventures down (decision-making, ownership gaps, communication issues, process holes).
• Design scale-ready processes for hiring, onboarding, vendor management, internal communication and reporting appropriate to stage.
• Support ventures in becoming “scale-ready” for key milestones such as fundraising, team growth and geographic or product expansion.
• Coach founders and emerging leaders on execution discipline, delegation, prioritisation and building high-performing teams.
• Contribute to investor and board narratives by helping articulate execution progress, operational risks and scale plans.

What We’re Looking For:

• Significant experience in senior operating roles (COO, VP Operations, GM, Chief of Staff / Head of Ops) in startups or scale-ups.
• Proven track record improving execution quality, operating discipline and cross-functional coordination in high-growth environments.
• Experience working across multiple products, business lines or ventures – comfortable context-switching while keeping depth.
• Strong systems thinker who can design simple, practical operating frameworks that teams actually use.
• Comfortable working across product, growth, finance and people topics – you’re a generalist operator, not a narrow specialist.
• Excellent communication and facilitation skills; able to create clarity and alignment in ambiguous, fast-moving contexts.
• High ownership, low ego; happy to move between strategic design and hands-on problem solving.
• Genuine interest in venture building, AI-native companies and helping multiple founders execute better.

What We Offer:

• A “COO with leverage” role: shape the operating foundations of multiple ventures, not just one.
• Significant autonomy to define how we run venture creation, portfolio support and studio operations.
• Close collaboration with founders, product leaders, commercial leaders and investors on ambitious early-stage ideas.
• Flexible structure (full-time or high-commitment fractional, to be agreed) with competitive compensation and meaningful upside aligned to impact.
• The opportunity to define the operational DNA of a venture studio and help multiple startups avoid common execution pitfalls.

Location: Hybrid / flexible, with a preference for candidates who can spend meaningful time in the UK (especially London) and occasionally join in-person sessions with founders and the studio team.

If you’re a senior operator who loves turning ideas into disciplined execution, and you want to do that across several AI-native ventures, we’d love to hear from you. Please apply with your CV/LinkedIn and a short note on why this COO-in-Residence role at AINAD appeals to you.