Operations Manager
21 days ago
£30000–£45000 yearly
Full-time
Nine Elms, London
Operations Manager — Produce Network We supply fresh produce to some of London's best restaurants. While most of the city sleeps, our team is at wholesale markets hand-picking produce that lands in restaurant kitchens before breakfast service. It's fast, physical, and relentless — and right now we're a team of 3 doing the work of 10. We need the fourth. This role in one paragraph You'll run the operational engine of a growing wholesale business. Client calls, order coordination, daily reconciliation, bookkeeping, problem-solving, phone ringing — all of it is yours. You're the first person clients speak to and the last person to check that yesterday's numbers add up. If something goes wrong overnight — a wrong delivery, a short order, a supplier issue — you're the one who finds out, fixes it, and makes sure the client knows before they have to chase us. You own the daytime operation the way our Night Operations Manager owns the night. Between the two of you, the business runs 24 hours. What you'll actually do every day You're the client's main contact. Orders come in via WhatsApp, phone, and email. You process them, confirm them, flag anything unusual. When a chef calls at 8:15 AM asking where their herbs are, you already know the answer because you've read the night report and checked the dispatch log. You don't wait for problems to come to you — you call the client before they call you. That's the difference between an assistant and an operator. You coordinate the fix when things go wrong. Produce wholesale is not a clean business. Items get substituted, deliveries run late, a crate arrives damaged. When it happens, you own the resolution: investigate, coordinate with the night team or drivers, arrange the fix (re-delivery, credit note, replacement), close the loop with the client, and log the whole thing. If the same problem shows up three times, you're the person who flags it as a process issue — not just an incident. You reconcile everything, every day. What was ordered vs what was received from suppliers vs what was dispatched vs what was invoiced. Purchase orders matched against supplier invoices. Sales orders matched against customer invoices. Inventory tracked. Shortages flagged before they become emergencies. You produce a daily summary the founder reviews in 5 minutes — clean, accurate, no surprises. If you're the kind of person who finds satisfaction in numbers that balance, this will be your favourite part of the job. You run the books. Day-to-day bookkeeping in QuickBooks or Xero: bank feeds, invoices, bills, categorisation. Debtor chasing — politely on the due date, firmly at 3 days overdue, escalated to the founder at 30 days. Weekly financial summary. Monthly close support. You maintain the product cost data that powers margin tracking — weekly updates, no exceptions. The founder makes pricing and growth decisions based on numbers you produce. They have to be right. You own the phone. The main business line rings and you answer it. Existing clients with questions, prospective clients with enquiries, suppliers with updates. You're professional, you're warm, you handle what you can and route what you can't. For new enquiries, you capture the details, qualify the lead, and hand it to the founder. You support outbound sales — managing the email pipeline, scheduling meetings, preparing documents. When a new account closes, you run the onboarding playbook. Who we're looking for — honestly We're not looking for a CV. We're looking for a specific type of person. You're the person who walks into a room and notices what's broken before anyone tells you. You fix things that aren't your job because leaving them broken bothers you. You write things down because you know you'll forget otherwise. You don't need to be chased — you chase other people. When something goes wrong, your instinct is to understand why, not to find someone to blame. You're comfortable saying "I don't know, but I'll find out" and then actually finding out. You're comfortable making a decision with 80% of the information because waiting for 100% means the client is already unhappy. You're comfortable being wrong sometimes, because you know that the person who never makes a mistake is the person who never does anything. You probably have some experience in operations, admin, or office management — ideally at a small business where you wore multiple hats. Maybe you've worked in food, hospitality, or wholesale. Maybe you haven't, but you've run the back end of something and you know what it feels like when everything depends on you not dropping the ball. Essential: Strong written and spoken English · comfortable with numbers, spreadsheets, and accounting tools · self-directed (you manage yourself, we don't manage you) · able to hold 5 priorities at once without losing any · honest about mistakes · quick to learn new software (Airtable, QuickBooks/Xero, Lemlist) · right to work in the UK. Preferred: Bookkeeping experience or QuickBooks/Xero familiarity · food, hospitality, or wholesale background · complaint handling or fast-paced customer service experience · inventory or stock management exposure. Nice to have: AAT qualification · Airtable or CRM experience · knowledge of the London restaurant scene. Why this job is worth your time Most operations roles are dead ends. This one isn't. Here's why. We're a team of 3, growing fast. The person who takes this role will — within months, not years — understand every part of how a wholesale business works: client management, supply chain, financial control, inventory, sales. That's not because we'll send you on a training course. It's because you'll be doing all of it, every day, from week one. The explicit deal: start at £33k. Hit your 3-month performance review targets and move to £38k. Hit your 12-month targets and move to £45k. These aren't vague promises — they're structured milestones tied to specific outcomes we'll agree together in your first week. The long-term path is Chief Operating Officer. That's not a title we're dangling to attract applicants — it's a gap that actually exists in the business and needs to be filled by someone who's earned it from the inside. The founder wants to focus on growth and strategy. The person who proves they can run the day-to-day operation — and then improve it — becomes the person who runs it permanently. The full picture • Hours: 8 AM – 6 PM, Monday to Friday, • Location: London (on-site, not remote — the work requires being where the operation is), • Salary: £33,000 → £38,000 at 3 months → £45,000 at 12 months, all performance-linked, • Title progression: Operations Manager → Head of Operations → COO, • Team: you'll be the 4th person in a tight, high-trust team, • Culture: direct, honest, fast. We tell each other when things are wrong and we fix them together. No politics, no layers, no waiting for permission
