Chief Operating Officer

Compensation:

• $200,000–$250,000 base
• Quarterly profit share tied to company results with $100K+ upside at strong performance
• 401(k)
• Medical, dental and vision coverage
• Paid time off, holidays and parental leave

Location:

• South Carolina, on-site, five days a week in a manufacturing environment.
• Relocation is required for anyone outside the area, and the company will support the move.

About the company

Our client is a founder-owned manufacturer of consumer products. Production, supply chain and fulfillment all run in-house. The business sells primarily direct to consumers, with a growing wholesale and retail channel.

The company has never taken outside investment. There is no private equity sponsor, no board to manage and no exit clock. Decisions get made on what’s best for the business over a ten-year horizon.

Revenue is eight figures, profitable, and has grown every year since founding. Roughly 100 employees, about 80 of them in operations. The model is proven and the brand has real momentum, but the founders see this as the early stage of a much longer runway.

One thing to understand up front: the year has a pronounced peak. A large share of annual volume lands in a single spring-to-summer window, with a second bump around the holidays. Planning for that peak, and executing through it without running short or degrading service, is the defining rhythm of the operating year.

The role

The COO owns operations, customer experience and human resources, and reports directly to a co-founder. The role sits on the executive team alongside the founders, the CFO and the CMO.

This is a hands-on operating seat, not a strategy seat. Manufacturing, fulfillment (DTC parcel and wholesale freight), supply chain, customer service and HR all roll up here. Experienced directors already lead each of those functions. What they need is a leader who has built the next stage of an operation before and can help each of them grow.

This is not a turnaround. It is a build and scale: taking a solid operation and making it excellent, while adding the capability to serve additional channels at scale. The COO owns everything required to deliver: capacity, fulfillment, freight and retail compliance.

What the first twelve months look like

• Own the function outright. Establish a clear operating cadence, a scorecard the executive team trusts, and reporting that gives ownership visibility without having to ask for it.
• Get through peak season without running out. Build a joint demand and production plan with the CMO, set a deliberate inventory position for peak, and make the cash impact explicit. Forecasting is a shared output, not a handoff.
• Get more out of the current facility. Drive measurable gains in units per labor hour, on-time delivery, and scrap and rework. Find margin across production, fulfillment, freight and procurement, and get full value out of the ERP.
• Build for the second channel. The company is piloting with a national retail partner and expects the channel to grow significantly. Retail demands things DTC does not: packaging and labeling standards, EDI, routing compliance, longer lead times, chargeback exposure and different inventory economics. Building that capability without compromising the DTC engine is the biggest operational project on the horizon.
• Develop the bench. Each of the directors in operations, supply chain, customer experience and HR should be measurably better a year from now, with a clear development path.
• Plan the next footprint. The company has outgrown buildings before and will again. Recommend the capacity path, whether more shifts, automation, outsourcing or a new facility, and define what the next building needs to do.

Core responsibilities

Operations and supply chain

• Own production planning and execution, supporting the operations leadership team to deliver on time, on quality and on budget.
• Own end-to-end fulfillment for DTC and wholesale: accuracy, cycle time, cost per order, fill rate and customer outcome.
• Develop and manage the supply chain, procuring materials cost-effectively while holding inventory appropriate to a fast-growing, seasonal business.
• Negotiate directly with suppliers on cost, quantities and terms; manage carrier relationships and freight economics.

Financial oversight and process improvement

• Manage operational capital investment and operating expense against growth and profitability targets, in partnership with the CFO.
• Maintain constant awareness of how cash is allocated across operational inputs, especially inventory.
• Continuously identify and implement process improvements that reduce cost and increase throughput.
• Monitor operational metrics and report them proactively to the executive team.

Customer experience

• Support the customer service leader in setting standards for communication, issue resolution and service delivery.
• Keep customer satisfaction a first-order priority and build the measurement to prove it.
• Make sure customer-centric thinking is built into operational decisions, not bolted on afterward.

People and organization

• Lead the HR function across talent acquisition, onboarding, engagement, performance management, policy and retention.
• Give direct reports constructive feedback and timely evaluations, and build real development paths.
• Set the cultural tone on the floor. This is a business where leadership presence is visible and matters.

Compliance, safety and facilities

• Ensure compliance with industry regulations, safety standards and company policy.
• Maintain appropriate insurance coverage across all operational areas.
• Support the founders on real estate strategy and facility planning as the footprint grows.
• Support tax incentive strategy related to facilities and workforce.

How this person operates

Operational competence is table stakes for this seat. The differentiator is how the person works with ownership and with their peers. These are real requirements, not aspirational language.

• Communicates upward early and brings a plan. Ownership hears about problems from this person first, and in most cases the problem arrives with a recommendation and the reasoning behind it. Invites pushback, then commits.
• Engages directly with disagreement. Takes feedback well. Says what they think in the room, at the time.
• Owns outcomes over process. When something misses, the response is what went wrong and what changes.
• Partners across the executive team. Especially with marketing: demand and capacity are planned together. Works in the open, through shared channels.
• Is present. This is an in-person, on-the-floor role in a manufacturing environment. The team should see this person every day.

Qualifications

Required

• 10+ years in operations leadership, including 5+ years in a senior role within manufacturing, operations or supply chain.
• Has personally owned a manufacturing operation: throughput, labor productivity, quality and production planning. Not solely a planning, sourcing, contract-manufacturing or consulting background.
• Has helped a business scale through a growth stage by building the systems, KPIs and management layer, not inheriting them.
• Has built demand and production planning in partnership with marketing or commercial leadership.
• A track record of developing leaders who went on to bigger roles.
• Strong command of financial management, operating metrics and cost control.
• Bachelor’s degree in operations management, business, supply chain or a related field, or equivalent experience.
• Able to relocate to South Carolina and work on-site.

Preferred

• Has run the operations side of a retail or wholesale channel alongside DTC: fill rates, EDI, routing compliance and chargebacks.
• Experience with branded consumer products, and a feel for product quality and customer experience.
• Experience with facility expansion, capacity planning or site selection.
• Has led customer service and HR functions.
• DTC or e-commerce experience.

Why this role

• Real authority. You own three functions and roughly 80 people. The founders want to hand this off and let you make it the best it can be.
• No investors to manage. No sponsor, no board deck, no exit timeline. Decisions get made on the merits and on a long horizon.
• A healthy business, not a rescue. Consistent growth, a strong brand, a loyal customer base, and profitable. You are building on something that works.
• A team already in place. Experienced directors run each department. You will be leading leaders from day one.

Compensation

• Base salary: $200,000–$250,000
• Quarterly profit share tied to company results, with $100K+ upside at strong performance
• Full benefits package
• Relocation support

Process

Conversations with the hiring co-founder and founding team, an on-site visit to the facility with time alongside the operations leadership team, and a practical working session on a real operating problem from the business.