Strategic Operations Manager in London

From board-level governance to real-time incident response, you’ll be the catalyst for our most critical work. Turn complex goals into seamless execution. Changing the world of pet food for good.

We’re Tails.com, a dog food subscription company with a big difference. We create truly tailored food for each and every dog we serve. We start by asking people a few simple questions about their dog. Then we use that information to create their dog’s unique Tails.com recipe – so their dog gets exactly the nutrition they need, in the taste they love, delivered to their door every month. It’s clever stuff. We’ve got bold plans. Having created an entirely new category in pet food, we’re now scaling fast – backed by Purina, one of the world’s largest pet food companies. You’ll join a bunch of smart people working towards the same goals – and a bunch of smart-ish dogs, all working on their own thing. Together, we’ll change the world of pet food for good.

The role involves orchestrating the delivery of our most critical work on behalf of the CEO and CTOO, ensuring our leadership cadence drives real results. This is a high-influence role that demands a rare blend of governance and grit: you will build and maintain governance structure to drive business-wide project delivery and incident response.

Responsibilities

• Leadership Operations: Running the business cadence, including leadership team meetings, strategy portfolio monthlies, and cross-functional working groups.
• Board Governance: Preparing the leadership team for Board meetings by creating materials, maintaining dashboards, and compiling strategic slides.
• Incident Management: Acting as the lead Incident Manager during business-wide crises, coordinating the response on behalf of a director level sponsor.
• Enterprise Risk: Managing the company’s risk portfolio and preparing the LT to ensure they are tracking and mitigating high-priority threats.
• Process Excellence: Developing and refining core business processes, such as New Product Development, to ensure we scale efficiently.
• Capability Building: Coaching and mentoring project leads across the company to develop a "best-in-class" delivery culture.

Qualifications

Essential

• Operational Grit: Proven experience managing business-wide incidents or high-stakes crises with a calm, methodical approach.
• Governance & Board-Level Exposure: Experience preparing high-quality strategic materials, dashboards, and reports for C-Suite or Board-level stakeholders.
• Complex Stakeholder Management: The ability to influence senior leaders, resolve functional conflicts, and hold teams accountable for delivery.
• Process Design: Demonstrated ability to develop, implement, and refine core business processes (e.g. New Product Development or operational cadences).
• Project Leadership: Experience leading or overseeing large-scale strategic programs and managing dependencies across multiple functions.
• Business Planning: The ability to set up and execute business planning, whether GTM, operations, project or incident plans.

Desirable

• Project Qualification: Nationally recognised certification in a project methodology and the ability to work alongside project leaders in both a linear and agile fashion.
• Commercial Fluency: Comfortable with Commercial Finance terminology and practice with the ability to add rigour to business cases and make business recommendations based on risks and opportunities.
• Sector Experience: Either a fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) or technology enabled background.
• Training Delivery: Formal or informal training experience for internal audiences. For example, the ability to upskill departmental leads in project management best practice through training creation and delivery.
• Prioritisation: The ability to prioritise between Director driven initiatives and strategic workstreams.

What’s in it for you?

• Competitive salary, reviewed annually
• Annual bonus, based on company performance
• Flexible core hours, giving you true work life balance
• Hybrid role to ensure this role works for you
• 25 days of holiday (excluding bank holidays)