Operations Director in London

We're hiring a Director of Operations to lead Ffern's manufacturing and logistics operations and our Customer Service function end-to-end. Ffern is a craft-led, seasonal fragrance house with a complex, high-standards supply chain. This is not a 'keep the lights on' operations role. It is an opportunity to build a best-in-class operations and service function inside a modern luxury business: one that can handle manufacturing complexity, scale thoughtfully, and protect the quality of the customer experience as we grow.

This is a hands-on leadership role. We're looking for someone who is as comfortable in the detail as they are leading the bigger picture, someone who can make strong purchasing decisions, run tight operational rhythms, coach and lead teams, improve partner performance, build reporting Finance can trust, and drive continuous improvement across the full operating system.

What you'll do:

• Own physical operations end-to-end: purchasing, inbound, inventory accuracy, 3PL management, fulfilment, returns, and reliability through seasonal peaks, and support the operationalisation of new products.
• Partner with Growth and Finance to forecast physical goods demand, 3PL capacity, and Customer Service demand/workforce requirements.
• Lead Customer Service as both a world-class experience and an efficient, well-instrumented team, including staffing, productivity, AI, tooling, QA, knowledge base, capacity forecasting, and feedback loops into Ops, Product, Brand, and the rest of the business.
• Build Finance-grade ops reporting, including up-to-date COGS, stock counts and reconciliation, cost-to-serve, fulfilment and returns metrics, and CS metrics.
• Strengthen supplier performance and relationships, and procurement discipline across cost, quality, reliability, and lead times.

Requirements:

Must-haves:

• A proven operator in a consumer business, ideally DTC/e-commerce, with strong experience across purchasing, inventory, and 3PL/fulfilment.
• Someone comfortable being hands-on, with strong judgement across cost, quality, service and cash trade-offs.
• Strong analytical and reporting capability; able to work closely with Finance and turn operational complexity into clear, reliable decision-making.
• Extremely comfortable navigating and implementing new software with experience setting up automations using e.g. Claude, n8n etc.
• 8+ years of experience.

Nice To Haves:

• Customer Service leadership experience.
• Experience of successfully implementing AI in customer service.
• Consulting, analytical and/or strong academic background.
• 12+ years of experience.

If you enjoy hard problems, high standards, and building operational systems that scale without losing craft, we'd love to hear from you.

Benefits:

• Private Healthcare - Full private healthcare with Vitality.
• Pension Contribution - We switch the standard pension contributions and offer 5% employer and 3% employee contributions, as a salary sacrifice scheme for tax-efficient saving.
• Ffern Membership - All team members enrolled onto Ffern ledger, receiving both the EDP and candle each season.
• Annual Leave - 25 days increasing up to 28 days with each additional year of service.

Why Ffern?

Ffern is built on patience, intention and care for nature, for craft, and for the people who make the work possible. This role creates the foundation that supports everyone else. You'll have real ownership of the day-to-day, the trust to run your remit well, and the chance to shape a consistent, considered employee experience within a growing team. If you're excited by the idea of being the person who quietly keeps everything moving, we'd love to hear from you.