Head of Business Operations

Glassworks London is an independent fashion retail and ecommerce business founded in London in 2010. We operate across retail stores, ecommerce, warehouse fulfilment, product, marketing, brand, finance, HR, international production and distributed teams. We are building a more scalable, systems-led business with stronger operating rhythm, clearer accountability and less founder dependency.

THE ROLE

The Head of Business Operations is the senior operating-system role at Glassworks. This person makes sure the company runs as one coherent business: priorities are clear, owners are accountable, KPIs are reviewed, actions close, issues are escalated properly, operating standards stay live and work does not stall simply because Founder review has not happened.

The Head of Business Operations is responsible for ensuring that work does not stop merely because the Founder has not reviewed it. Functional owners must have sufficient standards, decision rights, escalation routes and operating infrastructure to continue execution wherever reasonably possible.

This is not a founder PA, project coordinator, warehouse manager, general fixer, or software architect. It is a senior business operations role for someone who can manage managers, improve systems, diagnose operating failures, drive recovery and build organisational capability.

REPORTING LINES

• Reports to: Founder / CEO

• Direct reports: HR Operations Lead, Operations & Facilities Manager, Order Fulfilment & Warehouse Manager

• Business Systems & Technology Operations is a critical functional partnership.

The role will begin with a deliberately focused direct-report mandate and is expected to take on broader operating responsibility as capability and organisational readiness are demonstrated.

WORKING PATTERN / LOCATION

Remote / offshore role working UK business hours, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5.30pm UK time. The successful candidate must be able to operate fully within the UK working day and lead across a distributed company, including UK, USA, Korea, India and external suppliers.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Own the company operating rhythm, including weekly cadence, action registers, decision logs, cross-functional follow-up and escalation.

• Create and maintain a concise recurring operating report / management pack for the Founder / CEO, covering key operational KPIs, actual vs target, material variances, root cause, accountable owner, corrective action, deadline, recovery status, blockers and decisions required.

• Ensure reporting drives action. Where KPIs are off track, the Head of Business Operations must ensure an appropriate recovery plan exists and is being driven by the responsible functional owner.

• Ensure major operational functions define appropriate KPIs, report them accurately, review them at the correct cadence, investigate misses, create corrective actions and recover performance.

• Drive action and commitment closure: what is due, who owns it, what evidence exists, what is drifting and what intervention has happened.

• Hold functional owners accountable across Retail, Ecommerce, Warehouse, HR Operations, Finance, Creative / Brand, Marketing, Buying, Merchandising, Production, Business Development and external partners.

• Diagnose operating failures, including whether the issue is infrastructure, ownership, capacity, role capability, management behaviour, process, systems, training or performance.

• Apply Build / QA / Own discipline, ensuring recurring work has a clear operating rail, QA gate, owner, evidence standard and review rhythm.

• Own organisational capacity and productivity, including under-used roles, overloaded roles, duplicated work, founder-held work and unclear responsibilities.

• Own business continuity when people leave, roles change, responsibilities are exposed or recurring work becomes unowned.

• Own the inventory-accuracy management rhythm, including the company-level operating system required to improve and sustain stock accuracy across warehouse, stores, transfers, locations, discrepancies, stocktakes and process compliance.

• Understand and challenge inventory controls, including location accuracy, receiving, put-away, transfers, stocktakes, cycle counts, discrepancy resolution, faulty-stock treatment, system controls, process controls and WMS / inventory-system requirements.

• Provide operational assurance across ecommerce fulfilment, warehouse operations and retail operating dependencies, without becoming the warehouse manager or retail manager.

• Own HR Operations rhythm, including recruitment administration, onboarding, offboarding, probation control, people-process follow-through and manager HR actions.

• Own SOP and operating-standard governance, ensuring critical processes are documented, current, trained, used and reviewed.

• Own technology priorities from an operating / business perspective, ensuring material technology gaps are surfaced, implementations have clear business owners and adoption expectations, and systems blocking company performance are escalated.

• Partner with Business Systems & Technology Operations on requirements translation, solution/vendor evaluation, configuration, technical implementation, integrations, migration, UAT, rollout, system documentation and access / permissions infrastructure.

• Ensure the company has an effective IT / technology-support operating model across UK and international teams, including appropriate support routes, escalation of unresolved technology problems, joiner/leaver access, and visibility of hardware, software and access dependencies.

• Drive recovery when plans fail, including evidence review, reset plans, owner accountability, escalation and follow-through.

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR

We are looking for evidence of:

• senior business operations, operating-system leadership or operations integration experience;

• meaningful experience in fast-moving omnichannel retail, ecommerce, consumer, grocery or comparable multi-site operations;

• management of managers or credible authority across experienced functional owners;

• building operating cadence across multiple teams or functions;

• creating KPI rhythms that improve outcomes, not just reporting activity;

• preparing useful CEO / senior-management reporting that leads to decisions and recovery action;

• closing cross-functional issues with owner / action / deadline / evidence discipline;

• reducing founder, CEO or senior-leader dependency;

• diagnosing infrastructure, capability, ownership, process, systems, capacity and performance problems;

• sufficient inventory-management fluency to understand and challenge inventory accuracy, receiving, put-away, stocktakes, transfers, discrepancies, faulty stock and inventory-system controls;

• improving operational outcomes through systems, dashboards, automation, AI, SOPs or workflow redesign;

• commercial understanding across stock, stores, customers, fulfilment, cost, service and operational risk;

• distributed-team leadership and the ability to know what is really happening without being physically present.

You should be structured without being bureaucratic, commercially literate, systems-minded, AI-capable, calm under pressure, direct with managers and able to escalate with options and recommendations.

WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE

Strong performance will be visible when:

• the Founder is no longer the default chaser of routine operational actions;

• functional owners know what they own, what is due and what evidence is required;

• CEO / Founder reporting gives clear visibility of KPIs, variances, root causes, owners, corrective actions and decisions required;

• work continues where reasonably possible without waiting for founder review;

• repeated drift is diagnosed early and moved into recovery plans;

• managers are challenged before problems are escalated upward;

• major operational KPIs are reviewed accurately and drive corrective action;

• inventory accuracy improves through better rhythm, standards, evidence and accountability;

• warehouse, ecommerce fulfilment and retail operating dependencies are visible and controlled;

• HR Ops works inside a clear service and priority rhythm;

• Business Systems & Technology Operations work is prioritised against real operating needs;

• IT and technology-support issues have clear routes, owners and escalation rather than drifting unresolved;

• SOPs, training and operating standards stay current and used;

• absences, resignations and role gaps create continuity plans rather than organisational fog.

ROLE BOUNDARIES

This role does not own:

• founder strategy;

• product / buying judgement;

• creative or brand judgement;

• marketing strategy;

• final Finance judgement;

• HR/legal specialist judgement;

• software architecture or technical implementation;

• system configuration, integrations, migration or access / permissions infrastructure;

• personal administration for the Founder;

• personally performing warehouse / stock-control work;

• day-to-day warehouse management;

• retail trading;

• rescuing unfinished work from functional owners indefinitely.

The role owns the operating rhythm, infrastructure, accountability, KPI challenge, recovery and closure around functions, not every specialist decision or task inside them.

Business Systems & Technology Operations owns technical systems implementation. Operations & Facilities owns UK physical devices and onsite equipment coordination. The Head of Business Operations assures the overall operating model and ensures technology supports company performance.