Head of Operations in Chelmsford

LEC is a fast-growing London group spanning four businesses: robotics distribution and deployments, beverage distribution with exclusive Tsingtao partnerships, our own AI products, and UK–China trade. Operations is the engine of this group — everything runs through it. As the businesses grow, we need someone to run that engine and make sure nothing stops moving.

This role is heavily focused on LEC Robotics — across every part of that business: growing it, getting events and client projects delivered, pushing into new clients, and owning the process, organisation and structure behind it. From there, you run execution across the whole group.

This is an execution role. Not a coordination role, not an oversight role — execution. You listen, understand exactly what needs to happen, and go get it done yourself. When something needs chasing, you chase it. When something is stuck, you unstick it. When nobody owns it, you own it. You bring ideas to the table, but you never wait to be pushed.

You will manage and direct people across operations, sales, marketing and engineering — but you are not a manager of managers, and this is not a role for someone who delegates and waits. You do the work. Our operations team works across all our companies; people get plugged in and out of different businesses and tasks as priorities shift, and you manage, think about and build all of it while staying hands-on yourself.

WHAT YOU'LL OWN

• LEC Robotics growth: events delivered end-to-end, deployments and client projects driven to done, expansion into new clients, and the structure behind it all
• Execution across the group: every priority tracked, owned and chased to completion — told once, never followed up on, nothing left behind
• Getting it done yourself: whether it's a client project, a stuck supplier, an event deadline or a hire that needs closing, you go and get it over the line personally
• People: direct the ops team, run people down to make sure things get done, keep everyone in order and clear on what they own
• Structure from scratch: KPIs, dashboards, SOPs and operating cadence — built by you, enforced by you
• Hiring velocity: own recruitment execution — build pipelines, run the process, get key hires in, starting with salespeople. Open roles don't sit
• AI leverage: design and build AI systems and automation to make operations faster and lighter — we build our own AI and you'll use it
• Commercial push: work daily across product, sales, marketing and brand so operations drives revenue forward

YOU MUST UNDERSTAND THE WHOLE BUSINESS

• Tech and product: hold your own with engineers, understand what we ship
• Branding, sales and marketing: think commercially, push growth
• Operations and supply chain: suppliers, logistics, delivery, structure

WHO YOU ARE

• A proven operator from a high-growth or scale-up environment — founder's office, chief of staff, ops lead or COO-track backgrounds fit
• A doer first. Your track record shows things you personally got done, not just teams you sat over
• Superorganised and super detailed: systems for everything, nothing slips, ever
• Super fast-paced and proactive: you find what's stuck and fix it before anyone asks
• Comfortable directing anyone at any level — and doing the task yourself
• Hungry for real opportunity: ready to step up into a senior seat, all-in on growing with the business. This is demanding and fast — if you're looking for 9–6, this isn't it. If you want a seat that grows into group leadership, it is.