Senior Operations Manager
3 days ago
City of London
Senior Operations Manager Culture-led and experiential hospitality group London with travel up to £75,000 annual salary plus up to £25,000 bonus, car and benefits We are recruiting a Senior Operations Manager for a distinctive and fast-evolving hospitality group known for creating vibrant, entertainment-led experiences. Built around a culture that celebrates individuality, creativity and community, the business has developed a portfolio of venues that go far beyond traditional hospitality. From live music and cultural programming to competitive socialising and late-night experiences, each location has its own personality while sharing the same commitment to great hospitality, energy and experience. Operating across a diverse, high-performing multi-site estate, the business continues to evolve while maintaining a strong focus on its people, sustainable commercial performance and the communities its venues are part of. As the organisation strengthens its operating structure and continues to raise performance across the estate, this role will play a key part in driving commercial results, developing venue leadership and the wider Operations team, and ensuring each location reaches its full potential. We’re particularly interested in experienced multi-site operators who have developed their operational foundations within larger, structured hospitality businesses – ideally pubs, bars, casual dining, QSR or similarly process-driven environments – before progressing into roles with greater autonomy and commercial ownership. This isn’t simply about overseeing a collection of venues. It’s about bringing the structure, operational discipline and commercial rigour developed within an established multi-site business and applying it within a culture-led environment where individuality and entrepreneurial thinking are equally important. Working closely with the Operations Director, you will help drive profitability, strengthen leadership capability and support the continued evolution of the wider business, providing commercially sound advice and creating development opportunities across the Operations team. The role You’ll oversee a defined portfolio of venues, partnering closely with General Managers to grow revenue, improve profitability and embed strong operational and commercial disciplines. A key part of the role will be understanding performance at venue level, identifying where intervention is needed and where further opportunity exists. You’ll support underperforming locations to recover while helping successful venues unlock their next stage of growth, identifying sustainable investment opportunities and ensuring improvements translate into long-term performance. Drawing on experience gained within a structured, process-driven multi-site organisation, you’ll bring proven ways of working around operational governance, performance management, reporting, accountability and commercial planning – adapting these intelligently to a business where venues retain their own personality and identity. You’ll lead refurbishment and capital investment projects across your area, ensuring investment decisions translate into stronger commercial performance, improved guest experiences and venues that remain relevant within their local markets. Working closely with the wider leadership team, you’ll maintain consistently high standards across operations, compliance and guest experience without losing the individuality, personality and energy that make each venue distinctive. You’ll recruit, coach and develop General Managers and members of the Operations team, building trusted relationships, raising leadership capability and strengthening the pipeline of talent across the organisation. Commercially minded and highly visible across the estate, you’ll work across operations, marketing, events and other commercial initiatives to ensure activity supports both wider business objectives and opportunities within individual markets. You’ll use KPIs and commercial insight to inform business planning, challenge performance and ensure local marketing activity is delivering against clear objectives. You’ll also work collaboratively with People, Property, Marketing and other support functions, building strong relationships across the business and ensuring operational priorities are effectively translated into action. Strategic when needed but always comfortable getting close to the operation, you’ll combine the structure, governance and operational discipline of a larger organisation with the creativity, adaptability and cultural awareness required to thrive within an entrepreneurial hospitality business. What success looks like in this role Within the first 12 months, you will have strengthened commercial performance across your portfolio, delivering improvements in sales and profitability while creating clear recovery plans for venues requiring greater support and identifying sustainable opportunities for further growth and investment. You will have developed strong, trusted relationships with General Managers and the Operations team, creating a culture where leaders feel supported, challenged and accountable for performance. Refurbishment and capital investment projects across your region will have been successfully delivered, translating investment into stronger venues, better guest experiences and improved commercial returns. You will have strengthened operational standards, governance, reporting rhythms, processes and performance management across your portfolio, creating greater consistency, visibility and accountability while ensuring the business retains its entrepreneurial culture. You will have strengthened capability across the Operations team, coaching and mentoring leaders while building a stronger pipeline of talent for the future. Most importantly, the venues you lead will be commercially stronger and operationally sharper while continuing to deliver the vibrant, inclusive and culturally relevant experiences that make the business distinctive. Essential experience we’re looking for • Significant multi-site operational leadership experience gained within a larger, structured hospitality business, ideally across pubs, casual dining, QSR or another high-volume customer-facing environment, • A strong operational foundation developed within an organisation with established processes, governance, performance management and clear ways of working, • Established experience at senior Regional Manager, Head of Operations, Operations Director or equivalent level, with responsibility for multiple locations and senior venue leaders, • Full GB driving licence, • Demonstrable breadth and depth of multi-site leadership experience – this is unlikely to suit someone relatively early in their area management journey, • Strong hospitality background within high-energy, customer-facing environments, with wet-led, late-night, entertainment or experiential exposure particularly relevant, • Strong commercial acumen with demonstrable P&L accountability and experience managing performance against commercial KPIs, • Proven track record of improving sales, profitability and operational performance across a portfolio of locations, • Experience implementing and maintaining strong operational processes, reporting rhythms, governance and accountability across multiple sites, • Experience coaching, developing and challenging General Managers and senior operational leaders, • Experience mentoring and developing broader operational teams and building leadership capability, • Experience leading refurbishment projects and/or CAPEX investment within hospitality venues, • Strong operational discipline with a clear focus on guest experience, standards and compliance, • Confident analysing performance data, identifying opportunities and translating insight into action, • Strong Excel capability, with the confidence to interrogate commercial and operational data, • Strong commercial negotiation skills and the ability to influence across different stakeholder groups, • Highly organised, structured and focused on delivery, • Excellent communication and relationship-building skills, • Confident working cross-functionally with People, Property, Marketing and wider support teams, • Comfortable leading across geographically dispersed teams and spending significant time within venues, • Strong presence, natural leadership capability and high emotional intelligence Most importantly: you’re an established multi-site operator who combines the operational discipline and commercial rigour developed within a structured business with the personality, energy and adaptability to succeed in a more entrepreneurial environment. You know what great operational processes look like, understand how to create accountability across multiple locations and can bring structure without creating unnecessary bureaucracy. You’ll know how to challenge experienced General Managers, drive performance and develop leadership capability while protecting the individuality, culture and creativity that make great hospitality venues memorable. Closing date for applications: Friday 14th August 2026 Interested in this exciting opportunity? Please apply via LinkedIn. Unfortunately, owing to high volumes of interest, applications and CVs cannot be accepted through individual LinkedIn messages or email. Every application will be personally reviewed, and all candidates should expect to receive a response no later than one week after the closing date.