Chief Operating Officer

About the Company

AI Acquisition is a lean, founder-led group of businesses spanning acquisitions, coaching, SaaS, and performance marketing. The organisation operates with a rapid test-and-scale mindset and is built for commercial momentum rather than slow corporate planning.

The Opportunity

The founders already bring strong vision, capital deployment discipline, and growth instincts. What they need now is a senior operator to own the execution layer: the management framework, accountability structure, and scalable systems that let leadership spend more time shaping the business and less time running it day to day.

This role is intended for someone who has already led at this level, can take full command of operating performance, and is motivated to do it again in a larger, high-velocity environment.

Key Ownership Areas

• Take complete responsibility for profit and loss across business units, including target setting, performance delivery, and financial results.
• Create the operating infrastructure from the ground up, including KPIs, scorecards, meeting rhythms, incentive structures, and process automation.
• Lead senior managers and department heads, ensuring clarity on expectations, accountability, and performance consequences.
• Work closely with marketing and sales leaders on pipeline, conversion, and revenue operations when needed.
• Partner with People and Talent to strengthen management depth by defining leadership profiles and maintaining hiring standards.
• Act as the bridge between strategy and execution so the founders can focus on growth, direction, and external relationships.

Must-Have Background

• Clear evidence of P&L ownership, with measurable revenue growth or margin improvement during your tenure that can be verified by an external third party.
• Experience across at least two operating areas, such as go-to-market, operations/finance, and people leadership.
• Hands-on success building operating systems from zero rather than inheriting existing ones or working only in a fractional capacity.
• Experience making difficult people decisions such as exits, restructures, and performance interventions.
• Prior in-house operating experience within an actual business, not only in advisory or consulting roles.
• A highly assertive, detail-oriented temperament with the confidence to challenge founders and maintain accountability without needing consensus to move forward.
• History of managing teams of 30 or more, with direct leadership over VP- or Director-level reports.
• Strong initiative, urgency, and problem-solving speed; able to act independently and quickly.

Strong Signals

• Past title such as COO, President, GM, Managing Director, VP Operations, or Head of Operations in a founder-led organisation of roughly 50 to 500 employees.
• Experience in coaching, SaaS, agencies, information products, performance marketing, or other fast-moving service businesses.
• Documented examples of doubling revenue or lifting EBITDA margin by at least 5% during a specific tenure.
• Built operating rhythms such as weekly reviews, KPI dashboards, or incentive systems that remained in place after your departure.
• Experience leading distributed or remote teams across multiple geographies.
• Publicly shared operating ideas through podcasts, conference discussions, or written content.

Non-Negotiables

• Profiles limited to a single function, such as only marketing, finance, or revenue leadership, without cross-functional P&L responsibility will not fit.
• Purely fractional, interim, advisory, or consulting careers without substantive in-house operating leadership are not suitable.
• Candidates who rely on consensus-building or harmony-seeking approaches are unlikely to succeed in this environment.
• No track record of measurable P&L, revenue, or margin outcomes will be a deal-breaker.
• Applicants without go-to-market exposure or commercial ownership are not a match.

The Working Environment

This is a fast-moving, high-standards setting rather than a polished corporate one. Direction may change quickly, expectations are demanding, and the business currently needs stronger operational depth. In return, the role offers real authority, clear accountability, and meaningful upside.

Anyone who needs a long onboarding runway, extensive consensus before action, or months to understand the business before delivering results is unlikely to thrive here. The ideal candidate will be able to assess the business quickly, understand the landscape within about 30 days, and start building immediately.

Compensation and Hiring Process

Compensation is positioned competitively for the scope of responsibility, with final details to be confirmed during the hiring process. The search follows a structured sourcing and evaluation model, and candidates are assessed across five dimensions before any conversation is arranged.

Any outreach was based on verified career indicators that placed the candidate among a top-tier group of operators reviewed for the search.