Founders Associate - People in London

Can you help us fix the world's most broken supply chain? The fashion industry produces over 100 billion garments a year. 60% end up in landfill, not because people don't want these clothes, but because the supply chain for getting secondhand fashion from donation to resale is completely offline, manual, and broken.

Fleek is fixing this. Our mission is to make secondhand the first choice. We're building the infrastructure powering the global secondhand clothing trade, through a B2B marketplace and the AI systems digitising the supply chain behind it.

Through Fleek, vintage stores, online resellers, and retail buyers source graded secondhand inventory directly from wholesalers and rag houses across multiple countries. Our key enabler is FleekSort, an AI model fine-tuned on secondhand fashion, that can grade, price, and categorise items with just a photo, turning what has historically been an opaque and manual trade into a structured, searchable, and tradable global inventory layer.

Since 2022, we've saved 9 million items from landfill and tripled in size year-on-year. We've raised ~$50M from a16z, Y Combinator, Burda Principal Investments, HV Capital, and others, and have recently closed our Series B. Our advisors and private investors include operators behind Depop, Shopify, and Postmates. Today, we serve thousands of resellers and retailers across the UK, Europe, and the US. With the secondhand fashion market projected to reach $350B by 2027, Fleek is building the AI-native operational and financial backbone for secondhand commerce globally.

We're looking for people who want to build something that matters, and move fast doing it. Sound good? Keep reading.

About the Role: We're hiring someone to own everything that makes our London office work, from people operations to physical space to team culture. You'll be the person who makes sure the fast growing ~20-person London team (part of a 100-person global company across the UK, India, and Pakistan) has everything they need to do their best work. This is a hands-on role with real ownership. You won't be executing someone else's playbook. You'll build the systems, set the standards, and run the show.

What You'll Own:

• People Ops: Day-to-day HR operations on Deel: onboarding new hires, managing contracts, processing payroll changes, and keeping employee records up to date. Automating our HR Operations so that it flows without a person ever needing to touch the system. This is a true build-from-scratch opportunity to build a people system that scales. Making sure every new joiner has a smooth first day and first week. Automating and scaling our onboarding practices so every new Fleeker can hit the ground running. This will mean setting up IT relationships and automating the flow from contract signed, to end of first month.
• Business Operations: You will be asked to put your hands to an enormous variety of high impact problems which you will be figuring out on the job. You will be supported by our Founders, Head of Talent and our AI Leader to identify and solve operational focused problems.
• Office Operations: Planning and running team events, offsites, and All Hands meetings. Owning vendor relationships, service contracts and facility/landlord negotiations. Keeping the office presentable, functional, and a great place to work.

Who We're Looking For:

• 1–5 years experience in people operations, with hands-on experience running payroll in Deel or Remote.
• London-based. You will be a cultural cornerstone of our office and will be expected to be in most days. This is actively where you do your best work.
• Proactive problem-solver. You see what needs doing and do it. You don't wait to be told.
• Thrives in a fast-paced environment. Startups are messy. Priorities shift. If you need rigid structure, this probably isn't for you.
• AI and Automation minded. You understand that the future of our work is through automation and AI. You experiment with AI tools in your spare time and want to find a way to connect everything together.

Nice to Have:

• Previous hands-on experience with a payroll supplier or core HR System.
• Event planning or coordination experience.

What We Offer:

• A seat at a fast-growing, well-funded YC startup at an exciting stage.
• Direct exposure to the founding team and how a YC company operates.
• A dynamic London office with a team passionate about sustainable fashion.
• A launchpad for your career: We reward initiative. People who prove themselves here grow with us into broader operations, HR leadership, or wherever your strengths take you.

How We Work: Fleek is an in-office company. We believe the best work happens when people are together: the quick decisions, the cross-functional energy, the ability to solve problems in real time. Most of the team works from our London HQ 3–4 days a week. We're not prescriptive about it. Performance and trust matter more than attendance. We hire adults and treat them accordingly.

The Practicalities:

• Location: London HQ, Commercial St, E1 (Liverpool St / Aldgate East).
• Work model: In-office, typically 3–4 days per week.
• Stage: Post-Series B, hyper-growth.
• Team: 100+ across London, India, and Pakistan (~20 in London office).
• Visa: Unable to sponsor visas for this role.
• Culture: High ownership, non-hierarchical, fast-moving. Founder-led with strong opinions loosely held.

Our Values: Five values shape how we work at Fleek:

• Dream Big and Disrupt Yourself: Push the most ambitious version of what you're building. Step out of your comfort zone. Nothing is out of reach.
• Absolute Ownership: The buck stops with you. Drive initiatives to completion. Experiment, learn, persevere. The job isn't done until the job is done.
• Curiosity Leads the Way: Don't accept anything at face value. Ask questions you don't know the answer to. That's how you innovate.
• Talk to the Customer: Deeply understand their challenges, motivations, and ambitions. Every decision starts with the customer at the centre.
• Embrace Diversity: A global team building for a global supply chain. Bring your authentic self and embrace the diversity of everyone you encounter.