Operations Manager in Tonbridge

Definition Gyms is an independent premium gym brand based in Tonbridge, Kent. Serious training environment, dark industrial spaces, and a member community that turns up. Our standard is simple: by any means necessary.

Site One is established and trading well. Site Two is in motion. The owner is stepping out of day-to-day operations for good and will keep exactly two things: finding and funding new sites, and guarding the brand. Everything else becomes yours.

The role involves taking full operational control. Every site, every team member and every function reports to you. Your relationship with the owner is board-level: monthly numbers, quarterly strategy. No daily involvement, no second-guessing, no running ideas up a flagpole. You start in Tonbridge. The first job is to embed in the business and its culture, then systemise and stabilise Site One until it runs to standard without the owner in the building — and that work becomes the playbook for everything that follows. Site Two comes quickly after: our next location will be within 45 minutes to an hour of Tonbridge in any direction, and you will lead it end to end.

Twelve months in, success looks like this:

• Site One systemised and running to standard without a minute of the owner’s time
• Site Two open and trading
• A general manager bench strong enough to staff the next opening
• A business that improved while the owner was out of the country

What you’ll own:

• The full P&L across all sites, with hard profit targets per site
• The Site Two launch end to end, then the playbook that opens Three, Four and Five
• Hiring and developing general managers — the leadership bench beneath you
• Membership growth, retention and secondary revenue
• Operational standards, compliance, and health and safety across the estate
• The systems and reporting the owner can read from anywhere in the world

What we need to see:

Required:

• A proven multi-site track record in the fitness industry, with numbers you can show us
• You have opened at least one new site end to end
• You have owned a multi-site P&L and hit your targets
• You have hired, developed and, where needed, replaced general managers

Preferred:

• You were the operator behind a successful scale-up — the person who did the work of growing from one site to many while someone else’s name was on the door
• You have taken over an owner-run business and systemised it

The honest bit: This role is not for someone who wants direction. There is no head office, no framework to inherit and nowhere to hide. The owner is removing himself from the business completely. If you need a weekly steer, this will not work for you. If you have spent years running someone else’s growth and want the authority, the accountability and real ownership on the table, this is the job that almost never gets advertised in this industry. It just did.

The package includes a competitive base salary, discussed openly at the first conversation, equity earn-in: genuine ownership that vests as sites open and profit targets are held — not a token scheme, and the autonomy the title implies.