Head of Operations (COO Track)

About Us We are Gonini (previously known as Bezos.ai), a Series A logistics and e-commerce fulfilment company (£3.3M raised, Dec 2025). We are expecting to double our business in 2026, running a fulfilment network across the UK, EU and US for e-commerce brands. We're a ~14-person team that punches well above its weight by being smart and AI-native. We're looking for a Head of Operations to build the operational engine that lets us scale fulfilment quality without scaling headcount in lockstep. You'll inherit a team of 4 and grow it to 6-7 over your first 12 months. You'll sit at the centre of every important operational decision, as a key strategic partner to the CEO and Board and a critical member of the Senior Leadership Team. This is not a role for maintaining the status quo, it's for an operator who wants to define and drive our path to efficient, profitable scale. This is not a classic COO role, and it is not a classic Head of Ops role. It sits between operations, seller experience, 3PL partner management, finance and engineering. You should think like a top-tier operator AND be comfortable enough with Claude, SQL, APIs, and internal tooling to turn a messy manual workflow into a system that runs itself. The Mission: What You Will Achieve Your 12-month mission is to transform our operations from reactive firefighting into a proactive, data-driven machine that compounds. Where every automation you ship makes the next problem cheaper to solve, and where the operating routines you build can be run by the team without needing you in every loop. You will be the engine of our operational excellence: delivering on our promises to sellers while building the automation and team infrastructure that frees the business to grow. This role combines hands-on operational leadership with strategic thinking and a builder's mindset. You will lead from the front. That means building automations in Claude with your own hands, time in warehouses with the team, and answering customer tickets yourself, not just directing others to do it. We are a startup; the work doesn't stop at the dashboard. You should be the kind of operator who's happy opening a terminal, reading the docs for a tool you've never used, asking Claude to scaffold something, testing the output, and tightening it until it works. Then writing it up so the team can run it without you. Core Pillars of Success Operational Excellence: Own the end-to-end fulfilment process (warehouse partners, carriers, customer support) and make it run reliably at scale.Partner Performance: Manage our 3PL and carrier relationships with discipline: SLAs, scorecards, escalation paths, and commercial leverage.Build, Automate & Augment: Design and ship AI-driven operational workflows using Claude, Make and Retool, reducing manual intervention, enabling real-time visibility, and building automations that compound over time rather than one-off fixes.Customer Operations: Own the customer support function, drive CSAT and inbound-contact-rate improvements, and build a team that resolves issues before they escalate.Team & Playbook: Take ownership of an existing 4-person ops team from day one. Stabilise it, raise the bar, and grow it to 6-7 people. Document the operational playbook and build SOPs that make the business scalable and less founder-dependent. Requirements Who You Are: Skills & Experience Non-Negotiables: Top-tier management consulting pedigree. We are looking for the structured thinking, problem-solving rigour, and pattern-recognition that comes from a top consulting environment, applied to operationsFrontline operator: You spend time on the shop floor (warehouses), in the queue (CS tickets), and at the keyboard (building automations in Claude). You are not a manager-of-managers, you do the work alongside the teamAI-native builder: Proven ability to use tools like Claude, Make, and Retool to design and deploy automated operational systems. This is a hard requirement, not a nice-to-have.Operations depth: Direct experience running operations in a high-growth environment, owning operational KPIs and a team. The industry doesn't have to be logistics: fintech ops, SaaS ops, marketplaces, e-commerce, or other ops-heavy domains are all relevant.SQL fluency: You write your own SQL queries to interrogate the platform directly. Not "I've seen SQL", fluent enough to write joins, aggregations, and be able to correct Claude. We will probe this directly in interviews.Startup experience: Proven ability to thrive in a fast-paced, ambiguous environment, building from scratchAnalytical rigour: You use data to diagnose problems, prioritise improvements, and measure impactStrong communicator: Able to manage external partners and represent operations credibly to the board Bonus Points (Nice to Have): Degree in engineering, science, or related quantitative fieldPrior experience in logistics, e-commerce fulfilment, or supply chain (gives a faster ramp on Gonini's operating context)Prior experience managing a customer support function, including familiarity with ticketing systems such as Zoho Desk (or equivalent) and NotionBenefits Why Join Us: Own meaningful infrastructure at the intersection of operations, seller experience, 3PL partner management, finance and engineering… and see it compound.Work directly with the founder in a company that treats AI-native systems as a core way it runs, not a side experiment.Real product-market fit, real brands, real traction and a clear operational problem worth solving, with plenty still to build.A seat on the Senior Leadership Team from day one, with a genuine path from Head of Operations to COO.Travel to our warehouse network across the UK, EU and US.Strong growth in scope, career, and compensation as the business scales.