Operations Manager

About AURA

AURA is a global on demand security response, powered by smart technology.

We provide technology-enabled security and key holding response services across the UK, built on a live network of suppliers and independent responders (IRs) dispatched through our own platform. Check out our website and Linkedin page for more information.

The Role

The Operations Manager owns the day-to-day performance of AURA's UK response network: the suppliers and responders who actually turn up to sites, the speed and reliability with which they do it, and the reporting that tells the business and our customers that the network is working. It's a hands-on role.

You will be as comfortable chasing a supplier for a missing tracking number as you are presenting a weekly performance narrative to leadership, and you'll move between the two within the same hour.

You'll sit at the Centre of a fast-moving, matrixes set of relationships: your own UK team, the Operations Director, customer-facing colleagues, and the Shared Services located across the globe. Because decisions here get made quickly and without much ceremony, the job rewards someone who can build a credible case fast, get the right people in a room (virtual or otherwise), and move a decision to a close rather than let it drift for weeks.

Key Responsibilities

Network & Supplier Performance

• Own the day-to-day performance of AURA's UK supplier and responder network against response-time (TRT), ETA adherence, cancellation and coverage targets.
• Identify and close coverage gaps recruiting, onboarding and commercially negotiating with new suppliers where existing coverage is weak, at risk, or has failed outright.
• Run supplier performance conversations directly: flag underperformance early, agree remediation with named owners and dates, and make (or drive) clear retain/remove decisions rather than letting issues run open for weeks.
• Manage supplier exits, transitions and onboarding (including key-handovers for keyholding sites) so that live coverage is never left exposed during a change.

Reporting & Performance Insight

• Support the operational reporting cycle, weekly performance briefs, the Service Review, and any ad-hoc leadership reporting, turning raw callout, QA and supplier data into a clear, honest narrative: what's working, what's at risk, and what needs a decision.
• Maintain and interpret the core KPI set (TRT - average, median and P85; ETA adherence; cancellation rate; dispatch method mix; supplier-level performance) and know when a number needs a caveat rather than a straight read.
• Keep reporting sources reconciled and credible, chase data-quality issues (competing figures from different systems, missing fields, stale trackers) to a genuine fix rather than a workaround, and be upfront in reporting about what is confirmed versus what is assumed.

Cross-Functional & Shared Services Collaboration

• Work daily with the South Africa Shared Services function across Supply routing billing, CRM/data and tooling issues to the right owner and following them through to resolution.
• Partner with Product/tooling contacts on fixes that affect operational visibility (e.g. control-room data latency, CRM data gaps) by turning a problem you've seen live into a clear, prioritised request.
• Support Finance/Shared Services on billing accuracy where operational data feeds commercial outcomes (e.g. call-out fee provisioning, invoicing queries) by making sure operational records are complete and correctly attributed.

Process, Escalation & Team Leadership

• Assist in building and formalising the processes and procedures the team needs as we scale - this is an active part of the role, and the expectation is that you spot the gap and suggest the fix, always being one step ahead.
• Own live escalations: coverage failures, missed callouts, supplier no-shows and customer-impacting incidents, coordinating a fast resolution and a clear after-the-fact account of what happened and why.
• Contribute to the team's operating rhythm - huddles, stand-ups and reviews, keeping them focused on decisions and owners rather than status theatre.
• Support and develop team members with day-to-day ownership of network or supplier patches, setting a standard for pace, accountability and quality of work.
  
  

What Success Looks Like

• The network's core performance metrics (TRT, ETA adherence, coverage) hold steady or improve, and when they don't, you know why and what you're doing about it.
• Coverage gaps and supplier issues get a dated decision and plan
• Leadership can read your reporting and trust it: numbers reconcile, caveats are stated up front, and nothing important is buried.
• Shared Services colleagues in South Africa experience you as easy to work with and quick to unblock; clear asks, fast follow-through, no mystery about status.
• Process debt goes down over time, not up, even as volume and complexity grow.
• Your own workload stays under control without anyone chasing you for it and the service itself is visibly better each quarter than it was the quarter before, because you kept pushing it forward.
  
  

About You

You don't need to have worked in physical security or keyholding before, plenty of the best people in this business didn't. What you do need is a track record of owning an operational function under real performance pressure, and a genuine appetite for the ambiguity that comes with a company that's still building its own playbook.

Above all, this role suits someone who just gets on with it. You won't be handed a finished process for most of what you do, you'll build one, use it, and improve it, without waiting to be told. We're looking for people who set a high bar for their own work and hold themselves to it. You set the standard.

• Fast-paced and flexible: comfortable switching between a live escalation, a supplier negotiation and a leadership report inside the same hour and genuinely energised by that pace rather than worn down by it.
• Self-directed: manages a varied, fast-changing workload to a consistently high standard with minimal oversight - prioritises well, flags early if something's at risk rather than waiting to be asked for a status update.
• Shows real initiative: notices what's broken, slow, or about to become a problem, and fixes it or raises it without waiting for permission or a formal process to tell them it's their job.
• Continuous-improvement mindset: treats "good enough for now" as a starting point, not an end state, always looking for the next thing that could make the service faster, more reliable, or easier for the team to run.
• Genuinely agile: adapts quickly when priorities shift, a supplier falls over, or a process needs rebuilding on the fly without needing a lot of structure to feel steady.
• Solid experience in an operations, supply, network or service-delivery role, ideally somewhere with live, time-critical performance metrics (e.g. logistics, field services, facilities, security, on-demand/marketplace operations).
• Comfortable owning a KPI set and can read behind a headline number to what's actually driving it; you don't take a single figure at face value.
• A fast, decisive operator: you'd rather make a well-reasoned call today and adjust than wait for perfect information.
• Confident managing supplier or vendor relationships, including the harder conversations - performance management, renegotiation, and exit.
• Genuinely collaborative across time zones and functions; you build real working relationships with colleagues you may never meet in person, including the South Africa Shared Services team.
• Comfortable with a flat structure and light process. You build the structure you need rather than waiting for someone to hand it to you, and you don't need a hierarchy to tell you what "good" looks like.
• Strong, clear written and verbal communication and able to write a reporting narrative leadership will actually read, and to hold a room in a live escalation.
• Comfortable with core reporting/data tools (e.g. spreadsheets, BI/dashboard tools such as Qlik, CRM platforms); happy to get into the data itself rather than waiting for someone else to summarise it.
  
  

Technical & Tool Proficiency

This role runs on tools, not gut feel, and we want someone who treats that as an advantage rather than an inconvenience.

• Highly proficient with AI tools as a genuine force multiplier - we use Claude across the business, and experience with it is a strong plus. You're expected to use AI day-to-day to move faster: drafting and tightening reports, working through supplier and performance data, prepping for huddles and reviews, and freeing up your time for the judgement calls only you can make. Experience with other AI platforms is also useful, what matters is that you already think in terms of "what can I hand to AI" rather than doing everything the slow way by default.
• Highly proficient in Microsoft Office (particularly Excel and PowerPoint/Word), able to build clear, accurate reports and presentations without help. This is a baseline expectation, not a nice-to-have.
• Strong project management skills: able to plan multi-step work with owners and dates, track it to completion, and keep it visible to others without being chased for an update.
• Proficiency with an analytical/BI platform such as Qlik is highly advantageous. You'll be expected to use it frequently and proactively; not just to report on your area of operations after the fact, but to analyse it: spotting where coverage gaps are forming before they bite, identifying what's actually driving response-time performance, and using that analysis to plan supplier engagement rather than reacting to it.
  
  

Our Culture

AURA is a startup moving into scale-up which in practice means: everyone is trusted to do their job and do it well. Decisions get made fast rather than by committee. We are not hierarchical: your title tells people what you're accountable for, not who you're allowed to talk to, we have an open door policy. Nobody here is closely managing your to-do list & you're trusted to own your workload, hold yourself to a high bar, and keep improving how the service runs without being asked. If you like clear ownership, fast feedback loops, and being judged on outcomes rather than tenure, you'll fit right in.