Executive Strategy & Operations Lead

Reports to - CEO

Salary

£55,000–£75,000 per annum

Location

North East UK - Monday in Leeds office required, remote flexibility on other days, occasional London travel

Scope

Company-wide; participates in executive and senior leadership meetings and coordinates cross-functional priorities

Direct reports

None; standalone role working across functions on behalf of the CEO

Role purpose

To act as a trusted operational and transition partner to the CEO, providing a holistic view of business priorities and ensuring strategic initiatives, critical projects, organisational transitions, decisions and commitments move forward at pace with excellent levels of quality and execution. The Business Operations & Transition Lead connects leaders, projects and information across Horizon; brings structure to complex work; improves communication and reporting; and protects the CEO’s capacity to focus on growth, clients and strategy.

This is a highly visible, hands-on role working directly for the CEO, positioned alongside rather than within functional reporting lines. The postholder participates in Executive and Senior Leadership Team meetings, chairs and facilitates agreed sessions, and owns the preparation, documentation, action tracking and reporting that make leadership governance effective.

Key accountabilities

CEO partnership and prioritisation

• Work closely with the CEO to translate conversations and priorities into clear actions, owners, dates and follow-ups.
• Maintain a live view of CEO commitments, delegated work, decisions required and emerging issues.
• Prepare focused CEO briefings and meeting packs; anticipate information needs and escalate material risks promptly.

Business-wide programme and transition oversight

• Maintain a single, proportionate portfolio view of strategic initiatives, business transitions, milestones, dependencies, risks and decisions.
• Coordinate cross-functional plans and surface resource conflicts, delivery risks and duplicated work early.
• Attend relevant steering groups on the CEO’s behalf, or review their outputs, ensuring key points are understood and acted upon.

Leadership alignment and facilitation

• Build strong working relationships across the executive team and management population.
• Chair and facilitate Executive and Senior Leadership Team meetings as agreed with the CEO; command the room, manage the agenda, draw out constructive challenge and conclude with decisions, owners and deadlines.
• Support leaders with coordination and problem-solving, while preserving their responsibility for delivery.

Communication, reporting and governance

• Turn complex technical, commercial and operational information into accurate, concise, decision-ready updates.
• Establish consistent action, decision and risk logs and reduce repetitive status meetings and fragmented reporting.
• Own the end-to-end executive meeting cycle: prepare agendas and pre-reads, gather director updates, produce papers and reporting packs, document decisions, circulate succinct minutes and chase actions through to closure; support board materials when requested.

Execution, transition and operational improvement

• Proactively chase commitments, challenge slippage constructively and unblock routine cross-team issues.
• Coordinate agreed changes to operating processes, systems, structures and responsibility handovers, tracking readiness, ownership and adoption. Identify practical improvements to meeting cadence, workflows, information sharing and accountability.
• Use appropriate digital and AI tools to improve capture, tracking and reporting, with human verification and confidentiality controls.

Experience and capability

• Proven experience in business operations, programme delivery, change management, transformation, executive operations or a similarly broad coordination role, ideally in a growing technology or services business.
• Outstanding people skills and executive presence: able to hold a room, influence senior stakeholders without line authority and navigate challenging conversations with tact.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication; quickly absorbs unfamiliar information, identifies what matters and explains it simply.
• High pace, initiative, judgement and resilience; highly organised, detail-conscious and comfortable switching between strategic context and practical delivery.
• Commercial awareness, strong analytical thinking and confidence working across technology, sales, marketing, finance, people and client delivery.
• Confident with collaborative tools, project tracking, presentation and reporting; comfortable using AI responsibly to accelerate routine work.

Ways of working and authority

Reports directly and exclusively to the CEO, who sets priorities. The role has no direct reports and sits alongside the functional organisation with a holistic, company-wide remit. It participates regularly in Executive and Senior Leadership Team meetings and may chair meetings or attend steering groups on the CEO’s behalf by agreement. It may request updates, convene colleagues, coordinate work and follow up on commitments with the CEO’s delegated authority. Functional directors retain ownership of delivery, budgets, people and decisions; the Business Operations & Transition Lead owns coordination, information flow, governance and escalation, not their results.

Success measures - first six months

• A reliable, up-to-date view of major business initiatives and transitions, with clear owners, milestones, dependencies and risks.
• CEO receives concise weekly reporting that highlights decisions, exceptions and commitments, not lengthy activity summaries.
• Executive, senior leadership and steering-group meetings have timely agendas, clear documentation, decision records and tracked actions; overdue commitments are actively followed up and escalated.
• Fewer repetitive catch-up conversations and improved cross-functional communication, evidenced through leadership feedback.
• CEO maintains meaningful time for commercial growth, strategic decisions and important relationships.

Initial 90-day priorities

Days 1–30 - Build relationships; understand the CEO’s priorities; map projects, transitions, steering groups and existing reporting; establish a practical action and decision register.

Days 31–60 - Take ownership of executive and senior leadership meeting preparation, facilitation and follow-through; introduce consolidated programme and transition reporting and a weekly CEO briefing.

Days 61–90 - Refine governance, remove duplicated updates, improve escalation discipline and demonstrate measurable progress on priority actions.