[Hiring] Chief Operating Officer, Marketing & AI-Services Agency @AI Acquisition

Role Description

Our Customer Success organization has grown fast — roughly 2,500 active clients today, with 250 new clients onboarding every month, served by a ~100-person team where each account manager owns about 50 accounts. Growth has outpaced the operating system underneath it.

We need a hands-on operator to run this organization day-to-day:

• Own the P&L
• Build the accountability infrastructure from scratch
• Manage the department heads and account managers directly
• Make hard calls when performance or capacity issues show up

This is not an advisory or strategy seat. You will be in the org, running it.

This role requires an agency background. You must have built or operated inside a marketing, advertising, or performance-marketing agency — ideally with direct ownership of an account management or client services function.

What You'll Own

• P&L Ownership: Full P&L ownership of the function: targets, retention, expansion, cost-to-serve. You own the number.
• Operating System: Build the accountability infrastructure from scratch: account segmentation by risk, escalation paths, expectation-setting guardrails, scorecards, QA on client commitments, operating cadence.
• Direct Management: Direct management of account management leads and senior operators. Radical clarity on expectations, consequences, and growth.
• Cross-Functional Partnership: Partner with sales and delivery leadership on handoffs, capacity planning, and pipeline-to-onboarding flow.
• Hiring & People Ops: Partner with People & Talent to build management depth.
• Founder Leverage: Free the founders from day-to-day operational firefighting.

What We Need From You

• Agency background — built or operated inside a marketing/advertising/performance-marketing agency
• Direct ownership of an account management, client services, or customer success function at scale (50+ team members, hundreds to thousands of accounts)
• Verifiable P&L, retention, or margin ownership — improved during your specific tenure
• Built operating infrastructure from scratch — not inherited, not fractional
• Made hard people decisions: exits, restructures, real performance management
• In-house operating experience — not exclusively consulting or fractional work
• Managed teams of 30+ with direct reports at manager/lead level
• High agency and urgency — you move before you're asked, and you push back when needed

Nice to Have

• Title such as COO, Head of Customer Success, VP Operations, or Director of Client Services at a founder-led marketing agency (50–500 employees)
• Improved retention or reduced churn by a documented, measurable amount
• Built an operating cadence (QA reviews, KPI dashboards, incentive structures) that outlasted your tenure
• Experience managing distributed or remote teams across geographies
• Public writing or speaking on operating philosophy

The Environment

This is not a polished corporate environment. We move fast, we change direction, and we hold high standards. The founding team is commercially excellent and operationally under-resourced. You will have real authority, real accountability, and real upside.

If you need consensus to act, a structured onboarding program, or six months to understand the business before driving outcomes, this isn't the right role.

If you've done it before, can size up what you're looking at within 30 days, and want to build something worth building — we want to talk.

Location: United States, South America, or South Africa.

Compensation is competitive with the role's scope and accountability. Details are confirmed during the process.