Title: Head of Operations
Location: Translation and Innovation Hub, White City, London, UK
Presence: In-person
Start date: ASAP, Full time
Salary: £50K+, depending on experience
About Concert Bio
We are a biotech startup transforming humanity’s relationship with microbiomes, the world’s most
important ecosystem. We’ve started with hydroponics, helping the greenhouse growers who produce
many of our vegetables harness their plant microbiome to improve yield, resilience, and sustainability.
With our first product already live in the UK and US, and over $6 million in funding, we’re currently in
an exciting stage of rapid growth and international expansion. You’ll be joining a passionate team
where everyone has high ownership, shaping both the company and its culture as we scale.
Role
With our current COO departing, we’re looking for somebody hands-on to take ownership of the day-
to-day operations of Concert Bio as we grow.
This is a broad role spanning company operations, people, finance, grants, corporate governance,
legal and compliance, with some commercial support. You’ll have significant ownership of operations
across the business as our sole dedicated ops member. You'll work closely with our CEO and team, as
well as our accountants, lawyers, HR advisors, suppliers and other external partners.
We’re looking for someone with startup operations experience who understands what it takes to
make a growing company work. You’ll be brilliant at GSD - switching between priorities, spotting
things that are falling through the gaps and taking ownership of problems that don't fit neatly into
a job description.
Your initial scope will flex according to experience, with significant opportunity to grow with the
company. For a high performer able to take on broader leadership and strategic responsibility, there
is a clear potential progression path to COO as Concert Bio scales.
Responsibilities
Company operations:
- Own the company's day-to-day operational infrastructure, ensuring teams have the systems, resources and support they need.
- Take ownership of operational problems that cut across teams or don't have an obvious owner, seeing them through to resolution.
- Manage key suppliers and external relationships, resolving service failures, disputes and complaints and advocating for Concert Bio's interests.
People operations:
- Manage day-to-day people operations across the employee lifecycle, including recruitment, contracts, onboarding, payroll, benefits and offboarding.
- Maintain effective HR policies and processes and support managers with people and performance matters, working with external advisors where required.
- Manage employee equity administration, visa sponsorship and immigration processes.
Finance & Grants:
- Maintain the company’s financial forecast and budget, tracking expenditure, cash position and runway.
- Own day-to-day financial operations and manage relationships with accountants and other finance providers, including coordinating annual accounts and R&D tax claims.
- Manage the financial and administrative requirements of grant-funded projects, including budgets, expenditure, claims, evidence and funder requirements.
Corporate governance, legal & compliance:
- Manage company secretarial and corporate governance requirements, including statutory records, filings and board and shareholder approvals.
- Maintain the company's cap table and equity platform and administer option grants, exercises and share issuances.
- Coordinate contracts, insurance, legal advisors and company risk and compliance requirements.
Commercial support:
- Support the CEO with the administration and coordination of commercial activities and customer programmes.
- Maintain the customer CRM and commercial records, including visibility of pipeline, revenue and delivery.
- Support customer proposals, quotes, contracting, invoicing and follow-up as required.
Need to have
- Previous operations experience within a startup or early-stage company.
- Strong general business operations experience and the ability to work across multiple areas.
- Excellent organisation and attention to detail, with the ability to manage competing priorities and follow things through.
- Good financial literacy and confidence working with budgets, forecasts and financial information.
- A practical, hands-on approach and willingness to take ownership of whatever needs doing.
- Strong judgement, with the confidence to work independently and know when to escalate.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
- Confidence dealing with external partners, including challenging poor service and resolving difficult issues.
- Ability to develop and improve processes without creating unnecessary bureaucracy.
- A love for working in a high-velocity, collaborative startup environment.
Nice to have
- Experience in biotechnology, agritech, life sciences or another science-led business.
- Experience managing company finances or grant-funded projects, particularly Innovate UK grants.
- Experience with company secretarial or equity administration.
- Experience with HR operations, payroll and employee benefits.
- Experience managing UK visa sponsorship.
- Experience coordinating commercial contracts and working with legal advisors.
- Experience managing facilities, suppliers and operational service providers.
- Experience with systems such as Xero, Carta, ClickUp or equivalent platforms.
This role requires relevant past experience, but we are open to candidates at different stages of their operations career. You might already be a Head of Operations or an experienced Operations Manager ready to take on broader ownership. What matters most is that you are organised, capable, pragmatic and comfortable taking responsibility for making things happen.
Applications are considered on a first-come, first-served basis.
(α-)Diversity at Concert Bio
Concert Bio is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to creating an inclusive environment where everybody belongs, and every great idea is heard.
Come do the best work of your life with us at Concert Bio.