Operations Director: Strategy-to-Execution Leader

Full time 34.5 hours, we are open to a conversation about how you work these hours. Location Hybrid between home and our London office – at least once a month in the office, and other travel for meetings and events with UK-wide teams.

Are you an operations leader who thrives on turning strategic priorities into practical, scalable solutions? Do you excel at driving operational excellence and solving complex cross‑functional challenges? We’re looking for a Director of Operations to help shape the systems, processes, and ways of working that enable Macmillan to deliver its strategy.

About us: At Macmillan you'll find talented people working together to do whatever it takes to support people living with cancer. We're going all out to find even better ways to help even more people who need our support. Our values are at the heart of who we are and everything we do, inspiring our thinking and guiding our actions. Our new organisational strategy sets out how we’ll fight even harder to make every pound raised count for even more. With your help, we’ll transform cancer care for good.

About the role: As Director of Operations, you will lead and shape Macmillan’s organisational operating model and core business operations. You’ll translate strategic priorities into practical, scalable ways of working - ensuring governance, processes, and systems are clear, effective, and continuously improving. Working closely with senior leaders across the organisation, you’ll enable delivery by reducing friction, improving cross‑functional alignment, and strengthening operational discipline. This is a pivotal leadership role focused on operational excellence, organisational performance, and creating the conditions for teams to do their best work.

Key responsibilities:

• Own and maintain Macmillan’s operating model, including decision‑making frameworks, governance, and ways of working.
• Align organisational priorities with delivery capacity and resources.
• Translate strategy into clear, practical operating frameworks and rhythms.
• Identify and resolve cross‑functional inefficiencies and inconsistencies.

Process Design & Continuous Improvement:

• Lead the design and governance of key cross‑organisational processes.
• Drive simplification, standardisation, and automation to improve efficiency and quality.
• Build capability in continuous improvement and operational problem‑solving.

Operational Delivery & Service Excellence:

• Oversee the running of core enabling business operations.
• Establish service quality frameworks, SLAs, and performance standards.
• Support major programmes through strong cross‑functional coordination.
• Consolidate operational areas to drive efficiency and effectiveness.

Performance, Data & Insight:

• Use data and insights to inform decision‑making and continuous improvement.
• Ensure robust operational reporting supports Executive and Board governance.

Risk, Compliance & Assurance:

• Work closely with the General Counsel to ensure operational controls and mitigations are in place and effective.
• Lead incident response, business continuity, and resilience planning.
• Support compliance across regulatory, legal, safeguarding, and data protection frameworks.

Leadership:

• Lead and develop high‑performing, inclusive teams.
• Act as a key member of the Finance & Operations Leadership Team.
• Partner with senior stakeholders across the organisation to deliver shared goals.

About you: You are a highly credible operations leader with a track record of delivering at scale in complex environments. You bring both strategic thinking and hands‑on operational expertise, with the ability to turn ambition into action. You will have:

• Proven experience leading business operations functions, including forecasting, planning, supplier management, and service improvement.
• Strong collaboration, stakeholder engagement and influencing skills, with the ability to build trusted relationships at all levels.
• Experience translating strategy into operational delivery.
• Experience leading cross‑functional operating issues and resolving complex organisational challenges.
• Experience driving continuous improvement and integrating operational teams to enhance efficiency and quality.
• Confidence making high‑impact decisions with incomplete information, balancing risk and performance.
• The ability to turn operational data into clear strategic reporting for Exec and Board audiences.
• Strong leadership and people management capability, with a focus on building empowered, high‑performing teams.

In return, we offer a range of benefits including:

• 25 days holiday plus flexible bank holiday options, increasing by 1 day every year of service up to 30 days.
• Pension matched up to 7.5%.
• 120+ learning and development offers, with access to external professional qualifications.
• Flexible working patterns, such as compressed hours, flexibility to work earlier or later around our core working hours of 10am‑4pm.
• Holiday buying and selling scheme, life insurance, free wills, retail discounts and much more.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: We welcome applications from everyone who meet the criteria and strongly encourage individuals to apply who have a disability, impairment or health condition or individuals who identify as Black, Asian or from another minority ethnic background, as these groups are currently under‑represented at Macmillan. Our Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy along with our internal employee representation body, ‘Our Voice’ and 8 Employee Network groups help us promote fairness and belonging, becoming an engaged and inclusive organisation for all our people.