Head of Operations

Biographica is an ag biotech startup hiring a Head of Operations to own the company's operational backbone, with a clear path to COO as the company scales.

About us: Safeguarding the future of food

Biographica is on a mission to accelerate the development of more productive, sustainable, nutritious, and climate resilient food sources.

To achieve this, we're building the leading ML driven trait discovery platform for crop gene editing - enabling faster, more confident decisions about which genes and edits to pursue, to accelerate the path from genomic insight to novel, high value traits in the market.

Our computational engine identifies and ranks gene targets for a given crop trait in weeks, and designs precise gene edits to achieve commercially valuable and hard to determine traits.

We announced a £7M funding round earlier this year and we're now delivering commercial partnerships on the way to Series A.

Our HQ is in London with a lab in Rothamsted.

Role

Biographica has active commercial partnerships with leading global seed companies, a growing team, and a clear path to Series A.

As Head of Operations you'll sit on the management team - owning the full operational surface of the business across finance, people, legal, and governance.

The seed stage infrastructure is in place; this role is about running it with authority, building on it as the company scales, and bringing the strategic judgement that lets a high performing team move fast and with confidence.

Responsibilities

• Financial operations and governance
• Own the company's financial health - building and maintaining financial models and scenario plans that inform decisions on hiring, runway, and growth; managing the compliance calendar, cash, budgeting, payroll, annual reporting cycles, and the accountant relationship
• Run governance and investor reporting - resolutions, IMC matters, and board materials
• Design and own the operational process for Series A - data room, compliance readiness, diligence coordination, and legal workstreams; the infrastructure that lets the founders focus on investor relationships
• Own company risk - insurance, regulatory exposure, and lab requirements
• People and team
• Own people strategy and decisions - hiring, progression, compensation, and culture across the team
• Set and run the company's operating rhythm - OKRs, strategy planning, team comms, and AI enabled ways of working
• Operational infrastructure
• Lead scaling planning - building AI enabled processes, scenario model headcount, office, and lab
• Own the company's legal and contractual infrastructure - commercial agreements, employment contracts, and operational legal matters, partnering with our fractional GC
• Manage external relationships - vendors, advisers, law firms, and the broader ecosystem of talent the company depends on
• Oversight of lab safety and operations - health and safety, SOPs, and operational risk at our Rothamsted facility

What we're looking for

Someone who has run and scaled an operational function within a startup or scale up independently, including:

• Ownership and systems thinking - you've held a senior operational or Head of Ops equivalent role where decisions stopped with you.

You spot how things connect across the business, prioritize ruthlessly, and know when to build for scale and when to keep it simple.

• Finance and governance fluency - you read accounts, manage cash, own a compliance calendar, and engage directly with accountants, lawyers, and investors.
• Fundraising experience - you've been close to a significant fundraising and understand what it takes operationally to get a company through one.
• People leadership - you manage people directly and make sound calls on hiring, compensation, and employment matters.
• Strong communication - clear, concise, and tailored, whether that's an idea for the founders, an investor update, a policy, or a difficult conversation.
• Mission resonance - genuine curiosity for life sciences and applied AI in biology, motivation to work on urgent global problems, and the humility to build carefully in a domain where the science is still moving fast.

Agtech, biotech, deep tech, or life sciences background is a nice to have.

Why join us?

• Lead with autonomy: This is a management team role with real decision making authority.

You'll be trusted to own your domains, set the agenda, and operate alongside the founding team.

• Shape the company's direction: Your judgement on growth, risk, people, and resourcing will directly influence where the company invests and how fast it can move.
• Work at the frontier of AI biology: Apply breakthroughs in machine learning and gene editing to one of the world's most urgent problems.
• Join a world class team: Work with curious, collaborative experts across science, engineering, and operations - and have fun doing it.
• Competitive package: Competitive salary, meaningful equity, private health insurance, learning & development opportunities, and a clear path to COO.
• Based in London, with four days a week in the office.
• Inclusion at Biographica

We believe that rigorous science and meaningful impact require diverse perspectives.

We are committed to building a workplace where individuals of all backgrounds, identities, and experiences are respected, supported, and able to contribute fully.

We are committed to equitable hiring, fair advancement, and fostering an environment where every team member can do their best work.

Privacy

We process applicant data in accordance with applicable data protection laws and our Privacy Policy.

To learn more about how we handle your personal information and your rights, please see our privacy policy.