Chief Operating Officer

On behalf of our client, we are seeking a highly experienced and results-driven Chief Operating Officer, to spearhead the evolution of our client's profitable and growing SaaS company. This is a tier-1 role for an individual who thrives in a high-growth, entrepreneurial environment, who has demonstrable experience in scaling a SaaS business from circa £10m to £30m ARR.

As a pivotal member of the executive team, the role will be responsible for driving operational excellence, team performance, and sustainable business growth. Your mandate is bridging the gap between vision and execution, refining our subscription-based profitability models, accelerating global product commercialization, and fostering a culture of high-performance accountability.

You will need previous experience in architecting new or enhancing existing development and marketing of SaaS products applicable on a global scale. As well as ensuring the operation is optimized across all areas, including development, marketing, data, people and finance.

• Product Development & Delivery Oversight: Oversee the efficient execution of the product roadmap, ensuring timely feature and product launches. Translate strategic product vision into actionable development plans and deliverables, taking new products and features from concept to launch. Optimize the collaboration between in-house technology leadership, in-house development teams and outsourced development teams for seamless project delivery. Ensure the implementation and consistent use of effective development methodologies, rigorous testing and feedback loops to maximize team velocity and responsiveness. Lead the tech debt reduction strategy to enable rapid feature delivery with long-term system health, improving scalability, operational maturity and resilience. Develop solutions and systems for crisis management and intervention within a global 24hr operation, ensuring optimized processes and team development.
• Operational Excellence & Scalability: Enhancing and optimising key performance indicators (KPIs) to track operational efficiency and identify areas for improvement. Enhance, as needed, existing communication channels and reporting structures to ensure seamless information flow. Drive the adoption of best practices, processes and workflows across all key functions, including the advocacy of world-class tools, systems and AI to enhance productivity and quality. Build a scalable operational framework including applicable use of artificial intelligence (AI) that supports aggressive growth targets. Mentor, develop and recruit (as needed) a high-performing team across all functional areas, with a focus on balancing performance and engagement. Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement, through the implementation of structured goal setting and targeted incentive schemes. Optimize team collaboration, both internally and outsourced. Champion employee engagement and retention initiatives to build a stable and motivated workforce.
• Financial Management & Business Strategy: Partner with the founder to develop and execute annual operating plans and budgets, aligned to the businesses overall EBITDA target. Optimise data driven decision making across the organization. Monitor financial performance against budget, identifying variances and opportunities for greater financial efficiency. Optimize resource allocation to ensure maximum ROI across all business initiatives. Prepare the organization for potential partnerships or acquisitions, and investors, providing clear financial and operational data. Act as a key strategic partner to the founder, contributing to long-term business planning and vision. Identify and mitigate operational risks, ensuring business continuity and resilience. Represent the company externally in operational discussions, demonstrating professionalism and expertise.
• Branding, Marketing & Customer Success: Oversee the strategic and commercial impact of the marketing function for existing and future products, to ensure the effective delivery of both ongoing marketing campaigns, as well as effective branding and product launches. Own the responsibility of effective attribution and optimization for all acquisition tactics, ensuring all channel investments are backed by verifiable conversion data. Direct the strategic expansion of the product portfolio, implementing a validation process to ensure new brand development aligns with documented market gaps and long-term enterprise goals. Architect more advanced strategies to ensure high client retention, mitigate churn, and ensure a predictable revenue engine via marketing, customer support and customer education. Support the CEO in translating product concepts into go-to-market SaaS products, through optimal coordination of development, branding and marketing initiatives. Transform the Customer Support department into a strategic feedback engine, institutionalizing data-sharing processes that turn customer pain points into actionable insights for the Product and Marketing teams.

• Must-Haves: Proven COO/Operations Leadership: Progressive leadership experience in operations, specifically as a COO or VP of Operations in a high-growth SaaS or technology company. SaaS Industry Expertise: Deep understanding of the SaaS business model, subscription economics, and key operational metrics in a recurring revenue environment. Scale-Up Experience: Demonstrated experience in scaling operations from £10M-£30M+ ARR. Artificial Intelligence: Advanced experience in the strategic implementation and use of AI, for the benefits of operational efficiencies, which supports aggressive growth targets. Product Development: Proven experience taking new products to market, adjusting to market demands, and overseeing the launch of new brands on a global scale. Tech-stack experience: Must have technical literacy in development excellence including areas like resource management, cloud architecture/services, version control and QA. International Team Management: Proven ability to effectively manage and motivate distributed teams, including offshore/outsourced development teams. Process & Systems Acumen: Strong track record of implementing and optimizing operational processes, systems, and KPIs (e.g., Salesforce, HubSpot, project management tools). Financial Literacy: Solid understanding of financial statements, budgeting, and forecasting. Taking fully accountability of the P&L. Strategic & Tactical: Ability to think strategically while also being hands-on and capable of executing initiatives. Results-Driven: A relentless focus on achieving measurable business outcomes and driving accountability. Exceptional Communication: Superior written and verbal communication skills, able to articulate complex ideas clearly and concisely to diverse audiences including internal teams, founder and key stakeholders.