Chief Operating Officer

Overview

The Chief Operating Officer COO) will work closely with the CEO to oversee company operations, delivery, metrics, and special projects. Key responsibilities will include managing the operating system and OKR process, ensuring effective delivery, overseeing metrics, supporting strategy, and leading special projects. The role will involve coordinating with executive teams and directly managing key personnel to drive a culture of rapid delivery and meet the company’s financial model goals.

Relationship with CEO

The Chief Operating Officer will work closely with Anthony, the CEO, together forming a critical pairing. The role will take on responsibility for the company’s operating system, delivery, metrics and special projects, currently performed by the CEO. The CEO will retain responsibility for company vision, company strategy, product vision, external representation and market positioning.

Relationship with Executive and Leads

The Chief Operating Officer will both be a member of the Executive Team (CEO, COO, CCO, CTO and fractional CFO) and ensure that Executive Team members are performing their roles in relation to OKR delivery.

• As part of the executive team, the COO will be expected to contribute to a broad range of company topics, with particular insight into the company’s achievement of key metrics, tracking to budget and company operational matters.
• Coordinating and ensuring delivery of actions for which the executive team are responsible.

The COO will need to effectively navigate this dual Executive Team position, with the assistance of the CEO, to whom this team reports.

The Senior Leadership Team (SLT) consists of the Head of Business Development, Existing Customer, People, Marketing, Legal and Product, in addition to the Executive Team. The COO will be similarly responsible for ensuring the SLT are delivering actions towards the company strategy. The COO will have a key role in ensuring that these teams have effective and harmonious working relationships and will provide insights into broader team culture and performance to the CEO.

As part of owning the company operating system, and in consultation with the CEO, the COO would also be responsible for ensuring that these groups have effective meeting cadences and working methods.

Building effective working relationships with all Executive and SLT members will be critical to the COO’s success as they will need to navigate and balance ensuring that team members are delivering with being a trusted point of contact that team members feel able to have an open and honest conversation with.

Direct reports

The following individuals will report into the COO:

• Legal Counsel, responsible for legal and compliance risk and customer contracting.
• Junior Revenue Operations Manager, responsible for implementing software systems and reporting for business teams and preparation of company KPIs.
• Operations Associate, responsible for administrative finance functions and provision of internal operational support.

A close working relationship with our Customer Operations Associate responsible for systems and processes within the existing Customer team is also expected.

Operating system and culture

The COO will ensure that the company has a highly effective ‘operating system’ and is delivering on its strategy to meet or exceed its current financial model projections of £10m ARR by FY2027. They will take responsibility for the systems, cadences and processes that drive delivery in the company. OKRs and KPIs are the primary delivery system at present, although it would be within the remit of the COO to build and operate any other appropriate system.

The COO will also be a critical part of driving a ‘startup’ culture of rapid delivery. This will include quick execution, iteration, dropping of unsuccessful initiatives and scaling of successful ones. The COO will embody and spread our ‘deliver fast’ value, which includes principles of bias towards action, taking ownership and ensuring external impact.

Delivery

The Chief Operating Officer will be responsible for ensuring effective delivery across the organisation, with a focus on aligning actions with company strategy and driving accountability.

• OKR Ownership: The COO will own the OKR process (or any future delivery system they implement). This includes running the quarterly OKR cadence. They will ensure a balanced approach, facilitating both top-down alignment with CEO and company strategy, and bottom-up input from teams.
• Delivery Management: Working closely with the Executive and Senior Leadership Teams, the COO will drive project management and maintain detailed accountability for Key Results (KRs). They will regularly review progress, identify bottlenecks, and implement solutions to ensure OKRs are being achieved.
• Strategic Alignment: The COO will be responsible for ensuring that all actions and projects directly relate to and support the company's overarching strategy and that teams retain focus on activities that impact the company strategy.
• Cross-functional Coordination: Managing dependencies and cross-team elements will be a key responsibility. The COO will facilitate communication and collaboration between departments to ensure smooth execution of interdependent projects.
• Project Ownership: The COO will either directly manage projects or ensure they are being effectively owned and managed by appropriate team members. They will provide oversight and support to project owners, stepping in when necessary to maintain momentum and drive delivery.

Strategy support

As part of owning the company operating system, the COO will ensure that an annual (or other cadence) strategy and budgeting process is followed. In this regard the COO will facilitate the following of a strategy process. Where appropriate to the scale of the organisation, the COO will complete supporting analysis and calculate investment cases to support determination of the company’s strategy.

Relationship with finance

The COO will maintain a key working relationship with the fractional CFO and any future full time CFO. The CFO will run the annual budgeting processes, production of management accounts, cash flow analysis, cap table maintenance, investor reporting, banking and key financial metrics. The COO will collaborate with the CFO and be available to operational finance matters, as required by the CFO.

The Operations Associate will continue to run payroll, supplier and customer invoicing processes alongside the external bookkeeper under the direction of the CFO. External accountants will continue to be responsible for annual statutory accounts production and corporation tax returns.

Metrics and analysis

The Chief Operating Officer will be responsible for owning, preparing, and analysing metrics across the organisation, ensuring that the company is driving towards key metrics required to meet its strategy.

• Ownership of company metrics: The COO will take full ownership of metrics across the organisation. This includes financial and SaaS metrics that ensure the company is meeting its financial projections. They will ensure metrics are embedded into the company's 'operating system' and that team members understand their role in impacting relevant metrics.
• Tracking strategy impact: The COO will need to define an appropriate set of metrics that reflect activement of the company’s strategy, refining these over time as the company strategy evolves.
• Preparation and reporting: Directing the Junior Revenue Operations Manager, the COO will prepare and report on comprehensive metrics for all key areas of the business. This includes sales pipeline metrics and the company’s KPI deck.
• Analysis and insights: The COO will conduct analysis of metrics, including key SaaS metrics, to derive actionable insights. The COO will use metrics and operational knowledge of the business to identify opportunities and risks for the business.

Requirements

What We Need from You:

• Proven experience in an operational leadership role within a SaaS startup or scale-up.
• Strong background in operational management, financial planning, and delivering against strategic goals.
• Excellent ability to scale operations efficiently, creating systems and processes that support rapid growth.
• Outstanding leadership skills, with a track record of building and managing high-performing teams.
• Strong cross-functional coordination and communication skills, with the ability to ensure alignment across departments.
• Ability to operate in a fast-paced, dynamic environment with a startup mentality and growth mindset.

Preferred but Not Required:

• Experience in a B2B enterprise SaaS environment.
• Familiarity with legal practice, law firms, or legal tech.

Benefits

What we offer you:

• 25 days holiday per year (plus public holidays).
• Early Finish Fridays - on the last Friday of every month, we finish at lunchtime!
• Pension with NEST.
• Personal Learning & Development budget.
• Access to Mental healthcare for you and your immediate family.
• Enhanced parental leave policies so you can spend more time with your family.
• Lots of opportunities for accelerated professional development and career progression.
• Work alongside a supportive and talented team with the opportunity to grow one of the world’s leading LegalTech scale-ups.
• A warm, genuinely collaborative culture and an awesome team; and
• Regular socials.

Power in diversity

We put users at the heart of our design to provide legal transaction experiences that everyone loves. In order to make that a reality, we seek to foster a diverse and inclusive working environment that can empower our people to be creative, effective and innovative, to build a brand we are proud of.

We don’t discriminate against gender, race, religion or belief, disability, age, marital status or sexual orientation. Whatever your background may be, we welcome anyone with talent, drive and emotional intelligence. We're committed to building a diverse team and are constantly looking for ways to improve our processes to help us do that.

Location: London, GB

Posted Date: 11/2/2024