Operations & Delivery Assurance Lead

This role may be offered on a contractor basis or as permanent employment via EOR. We’re hiring an Operations & Delivery Assurance Lead to lead the day-to-day coordination of Intersect’s core operational functions while also taking responsibility for our Delivery Assurance function. This is a broad, hands-on leadership role spanning Finance, IT, Procurement, Legal and Delivery Assurance. You’ll line manage and support operational leads, helping ensure priorities and responsibilities are clear, risks and dependencies are visible, and critical operational activity continues effectively as the organization evolves. Alongside this, you’ll lead our approach to Delivery Assurance, ensuring Cardano smart-contract work administered through Intersect is properly coordinated, tracked and governed. You’ll help establish clear and consistent delivery records, reporting and administrative practices, while ensuring risks, blockers and concerns are identified and escalated appropriately. You’ll bring operational leadership, structure and follow-through, while ensuring specialist decisions remain with the functional leads. Intersect continues to evolve from startup ways of working towards more established and scalable operational practices. This role may particularly suit someone who: Enjoys creating order, visibility and confidence across complex programmes of work; Brings clarity to ambiguity, improving processes and working across operational, technical and governance environments; Thrives at the intersection of operations, governance, delivery and stakeholder management; Is comfortable leading and supporting specialist teams without needing to be the subject-matter expert in every area; Is confident working alongside highly technical teams without needing to own technical delivery; Values transparency, accountability and pragmatic governance over bureaucracy; Wants to play a meaningful role in supporting the future of decentralized infrastructure and ecosystems. As Operations & Delivery Assurance Lead, you will cover: Core Operations Leadership & Coordination Lead and coordinate day-to-day activity across Core Operations; Line manage and support leads across Finance, IT, Procurement, Legal and Delivery Assurance; Ensure clear expectations, priorities and responsibilities are understood across operational functions; Coordinate activity where work spans multiple operational areas; Identify operational blockers or areas of unclear ownership and support timely resolution; Maintain effective information flow between Core Operations, the Executive Director and the wider organization. Organizational Continuity Support continuity of critical operational activity across Core Operations; Maintain visibility of key operational risks, dependencies and potential gaps in ownership or coverage; Ensure critical processes, responsibilities and information are appropriately documented and understood; Identify operational dependencies or single points of failure and support appropriate mitigation; Help teams navigate periods of organizational change or disruption while maintaining critical activity; Escalate material operational or continuity risks where required. Operations Administration & Ways of Working Maintain and improve operational processes, systems and documentation; Ensure clear and consistent administrative practices across Core Operations; Identify gaps, duplication or inefficient ways of working and implement practical improvements; Support functional leads to maintain clear, repeatable and proportionate processes within their areas; Ensure operational tools and information provide appropriate visibility and accountability; Help develop more consistent and sustainable ways of working as Intersect continues to mature; Balance appropriate operational controls with pragmatic, lightweight processes that avoid unnecessary bureaucracy. Delivery Administration & Assurance Establish and maintain administrative standards for smart-contract delivery tracking; Ensure delivery commitments, milestones and dependencies are clearly documented; Maintain a consistent cadence of delivery reporting and status updates; Ensure risks, blockers and delivery concerns are logged, tracked and escalated appropriately; Provide assurance that agreed processes, approvals and governance steps are being followed; Coordinate delivery information across teams, contributors and external partners; Support planning cycles by ensuring delivery information is complete, current and reliable; Escalate material delivery concerns to appropriate leadership or governance forums. People Leadership & Team Management Line manage and support functional leads and team members across Core Operations; Set clear expectations around accountability, quality, consistency and follow-through; Provide appropriate coaching, challenge and support while respecting specialist expertise; Support effective prioritization, workload management and operational coverage; Allocate workstreams and administrative coverage across Delivery Assurance; Coach Delivery Assurance Partners on escalation, stakeholder communication and assurance judgement; Build a collaborative and trusted Operations culture focused on clarity, accuracy and effective execution. Governance & Risk Maintain visibility of key operational risks, issues and dependencies across Core Operations; Ensure appropriate operational controls, processes and governance requirements are followed; Support functional leads in identifying, managing and escalating risks within their areas; Ensure delivery governance requirements and agreed assurance processes are consistently maintained; Escalate material operational or delivery concerns where wider organizational or governance decisions are required; Maintain appropriate oversight without absorbing specialist accountability from functional leads. Experience & Attributes Strong experience across operations, programme operations, delivery assurance, PMO, programme management or a related discipline; Demonstrated people management experience, including managing teams, leads or specialist functions; Experience coordinating work across multiple functions, teams or complex programmes; Strong understanding of delivery reporting, risk management and operational processes; Comfortable working alongside technical and specialist teams without needing to be the subject-matter expert; Strong organizational and problem-solving skills, with the ability to manage competing priorities and follow work through to completion; Clear and confident communicator, comfortable working with senior stakeholders; Calm and pragmatic, with experience operating in environments where priorities and ways of working continue to evolve. Preferred (will strengthen your candidacy) Experience working within a startup, scale-up or maturing organization; Experience supporting globally distributed teams; Experience within software, technology, infrastructure or smart-contract delivery environments; Familiarity with Web3, blockchain, crypto or decentralized governance; Experience working with executive leadership, boards or governance bodies. Compensation, Benefits & Location Compensation at Intersect is informed by role archetypes, scope, and accountability, and benchmarked against comparable global nonprofit and Web3 roles requiring similar skills, impact, and complexity. As part of our ongoing organisational development, we continue to evolve a role archetype and salary framework to bring greater clarity and consistency to compensation across Intersect. As a maturing start-up, we are in the process of evolving our benefits offering to ensure it reflects our community-first values and global workforce. This is a remote-first role, with some expectations of travel when required. There is the option to collaborate in person in our London workspace (Tower Hill) if you are based in London. Hiring Process The suitable candidate will be selected through a three-stage recruitment process. All interviews will be conducted remotely via Google Meet. Introductory Call: An initial conversation with our People Team to confirm alignment and suitability for the role. Formal Interview: A detailed interview to assess experience and fit from both technical and team perspectives. This will likely include a take-home task to complete and present in this interview. Final Stage: A competency-based assessment and additional opportunity to ask questions. Intersect is an equal-opportunity organization. We value diversity of thought, identity, experience, and culture and are committed to building a leadership team that reflects the decentralized community we serve. To learn more about Intersect MBO and what we do, please visit our Knowledge Base - https://docs.intersectmbo.org/