The Role

The Chief Operating Officer reports directly to the CEO and is a member of the executive leadership team.  This position is responsible for the full range of company operations including: Logistics and Operations; Sales; Supply; Rollout and all Geographic operations.  The position is primarily internal operationally focused,  working closely with the CEO, but with the intent of operationally freeing the CEO in order to be more externally focused on the following CEO roles:  external “evangelist”; board management; strategic partner development; and continuous fundraising. 

The CEO will maintain the following direct reports: VP Finance/CFO; Head of Corp Dev; VP Marketing; VP Gov / Industry Affairs; CTO.  All other leaders, including geographic organization reports to the COO.  In short, the COO owns generating and delivering the revenues of the company.  And the COO organization will be the leader for the majority of the employees of FoodMaven at scale.  Additionally, there is room, based on expertise and rationale, for division of duties that may belong either with the VP Finance/CFO or COO, TBD.  Examples or areas include: HR; IT; Facilities; Admin; Business Support; etc.

Key Responsibilities include

• Full participant in company strategy and planning
• Drive all sales activities to generate revenues to plan and configuration.
• Work with VP of Marketing to insure contribution necessary to support revenues
• Provide leadership to all supply efforts to insure product required to match the revenue targets.
• Leadership for supply relationship management, engaging CEO at appropriate strategic account levels
• Management for all logistics and operations to deliver product and revenues
• Leadership for logistics optimization and associated R&D activities to optimize logistics.
• Coordination with all Strategic Corp Dev and all M&A activities.
• Creation and leadership of all “tiger team” deployment, assimilation, and rollout organization and operations
• Work closely with Product and technology organizations to create appropriate alignment
• Maintenance of appropriate customer relationship management and optimization
• Be a role model and leader for the company culture.  Given early phase character of company, develop emerging leaders as appropriate.  Recruiting key leadership team members as required.
• Work with the CEO and the other executive team members to identify and develop strategic alliances, communicate with BoD members, and close/grow major customer accounts.
• Develop and manage the Company’s entire operations budget.
• Develop and track metrics and success criteria for all operations programs and activities.
• The COO will lead and manage all the above organizations and functions to insure appropriate scale, expertise, execution, management to financial objectives.
• TBD on HR ownership, as well as internal IT leadership.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities Required

• Alignment with core Mission, Values and Culture of FoodMaven
• Experience leading across the full spectrum of operations strategies and tactics
• Minimum of 15 years operations experience, with at least 5 years in senior management
• Exceptional track record of developing and implementing sales strategies that have consistently met or exceeded planned objectives, providing personal leadership through example
• Experience with physical logistics and transportation
• Solid working understanding of information technologies and associated innovations
• Experience working with suppliers for product in inventory, ideally experience sourcing food product
• Ability to work collaboratively with colleagues and staff to create a results driven, team oriented environment
• Experience building geographically dispersed teams while preserving company model and culture.
• Strong strategic planning and analysis skills in sales, operations, and supply strategy
• Strong demonstrated writing and presentation skills
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent
• Recognized as a extraordinary operations leader

Preferred Qualifications

• Venture-backed startup experience strongly preferred
• Food system experience a big plus
• MBA or Masters in related field nice to have
• Demonstrated drive for progressive responsibility and roles in a high profile startup

Position

• Location: Colorado (Colorado Springs or Denver area)
• Executive compensation appropriate to position
• Benefits per company plan
• Equity package commensurate with position and stage of investor backed startup