[Hiring] Head of Business Operations @Glassworks London

Role Description

The Head of Business Operations is the senior operating-system role at Glassworks. This person makes sure the company runs as one coherent business:

• Priorities are clear
• Owners are accountable
• KPIs are reviewed
• Actions close
• Issues are escalated properly
• Operating standards stay live
• Work does not stall simply because Founder review has not happened

The Head of Business Operations is responsible for ensuring that work does not stop merely because the Founder has not reviewed it. Functional owners must have sufficient standards, decision rights, escalation routes, and operating infrastructure to continue execution wherever reasonably possible.

This is not a founder PA, project coordinator, warehouse manager, general fixer, or software architect. It is a senior business operations role for someone who can:

• Manage managers
• Improve systems
• Diagnose operating failures
• Drive recovery
• Build organisational capability

Qualifications

• Senior business operations, operating-system leadership or operations integration experience
• Meaningful experience in fast-moving omnichannel retail, ecommerce, consumer, grocery or comparable multi-site operations
• Management of managers or credible authority across experienced functional owners
• Building operating cadence across multiple teams or functions
• Creating KPI rhythms that improve outcomes, not just reporting activity
• Preparing useful CEO / senior-management reporting that leads to decisions and recovery action
• Closing cross-functional issues with owner / action / deadline / evidence discipline
• Reducing founder, CEO or senior-leader dependency
• Diagnosing infrastructure, capability, ownership, process, systems, capacity and performance problems
• Sufficient inventory-management fluency to understand and challenge inventory accuracy, receiving, put-away, stocktakes, transfers, discrepancies, faulty stock and inventory-system controls
• Improving operational outcomes through systems, dashboards, automation, AI, SOPs or workflow redesign
• Commercial understanding across stock, stores, customers, fulfilment, cost, service and operational risk
• Distributed-team leadership and the ability to know what is really happening without being physically present

Requirements

• Structured without being bureaucratic
• Commercially literate
• Systems-minded
• AI-capable
• Calm under pressure
• Direct with managers
• Able to escalate with options and recommendations

Benefits

• Remote / offshore role working UK business hours, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5.30pm UK time
• Opportunity to lead across a distributed company, including UK, USA, Korea, India and external suppliers

What Success Looks Like

Strong performance will be visible when:

• The Founder is no longer the default chaser of routine operational actions
• Functional owners know what they own, what is due and what evidence is required
• CEO / Founder reporting gives clear visibility of KPIs, variances, root causes, owners, corrective actions and decisions required
• Work continues where reasonably possible without waiting for founder review
• Repeated drift is diagnosed early and moved into recovery plans
• Managers are challenged before problems are escalated upward
• Major operational KPIs are reviewed accurately and drive corrective action
• Inventory accuracy improves through better rhythm, standards, evidence and accountability
• Warehouse, ecommerce fulfilment and retail operating dependencies are visible and controlled
• HR Ops works inside a clear service and priority rhythm
• Business Systems & Technology Operations work is prioritised against real operating needs
• IT and technology-support issues have clear routes, owners and escalation rather than drifting unresolved
• SOPs, training and operating standards stay current and used
• Absences, resignations and role gaps create continuity plans rather than organisational fog

Role Boundaries

This role does not own:

• Founder strategy
• Product / buying judgement
• Creative or brand judgement
• Marketing strategy
• Final Finance judgement
• HR/legal specialist judgement
• Software architecture or technical implementation
• System configuration, integrations, migration or access / permissions infrastructure
• Personal administration for the Founder
• Personally performing warehouse / stock-control work
• Day-to-day warehouse management
• Retail trading
• Rescuing unfinished work from functional owners indefinitely

The role owns the operating rhythm, infrastructure, accountability, KPI challenge, recovery and closure around functions, not every specialist decision or task inside them.

Business Systems & Technology Operations owns technical systems implementation. Operations & Facilities owns UK physical devices and onsite equipment coordination. The Head of Business Operations assures the overall operating model and ensures technology supports company performance.