Portfolio Operations Lead

Location: San Francisco, CA In-Person: 3 days per week

The role We’re looking for a highly analytical, hands-on operator and coach who can help our portfolio firms increase efficiency and drive best practices. This person will build trust across the portfolio and own operational excellence across the firms. Define the standards each business should meet, assess where it is today, and work with firm leaders and our forward-deployed product experience team to close the gaps. Define standards for the core processes that affect delivery, staffing, client onboarding, billing, reporting and service quality, with clear owners and measures of success. Adapt the processes to each firm while making sure every business meets the agreed standard. The role starts before acquisition: you’ll help benchmark prospective firms, understand their operating needs, and shape a realistic profitability transformation plan. After close, you’ll turn that plan into action and continue improving it as you learn more about the business. The role reports directly to our Head of BizOps and works across both existing firms and new acquisitions. Travel to prospective and portfolio firms is part of the role.

What you’ll own

• Assess firms before acquisition. Partner with the acquisition team to understand how a prospective firm operates. Benchmark its cost structure, staffing, productivity and cash conversion against comparable firms, accounting for differences in services, geography and accounting treatment. Identify operating gaps, support needs and opportunities to improve FCF margin.

• Build the transformation plan. Turn pre-acquisition findings into a prioritized plan: what we should change, what it will cost, what resources we need, and when improvements could realistically arrive. Make assumptions, risks and dependencies clear, then validate the plan with the firm after close. Include implementation costs, ongoing support and the practical tradeoffs.

• Find the highest-return opportunities. Understand each firm’s financial statements, cost structure, staffing, vendors and workflows. Use data and time with the team to identify what would materially improve FCF margin.

• Lead cross-firm initiatives. Own programs such as vendor and MSP consolidation, offshoring, shared services, staffing improvements and process redesign. Find common needs across firms and build programs we can reuse.

• Implement and manage change. Work directly with firm leaders and the people doing the work. Pilot changes, address concerns, train teams and follow through until the new process is working.

• Build and embed the playbooks. Turn effective processes into practical playbooks, train teams with PX, and check that they are being used and delivering results. Keep improving them as we learn what works across the portfolio.

• Support new acquisitions. Carry the operating assessment into onboarding and agree a focused implementation plan with the firm leader.

• Prove the impact. Track results with Finance. Distinguish time saved, avoided hiring, recurring cost reductions and realized net cash benefit after implementation and ongoing costs, and make sure improvements hold over time.

How you’ll work You’ll agree portfolio priorities with the Head of BizOps and independently lead the selected initiatives. You’ll build trusted relationships across the portfolio and become someone firm leaders can turn to for practical help. You’ll spend time with users to understand how work actually gets done, then combine that understanding with financial and operating analysis. Before acquisition, you’ll work with the acquisition team and Finance on operating diligence, benchmarks and the transformation plan. After close, you’ll partner with firm leaders to deliver it. You’ll work closely with firm leaders and our Product Experience (PX) team to understand workflows, agree better processes, and drive adoption and results. You’ll own the operating standards, improvement priorities and business outcomes; PX will be a key partner in discovery, rollout, training and ongoing feedback from users. You’ll also partner with our systems and automation lead on technical implementation, our commercial growth lead on initiatives that affect customer economics, and Finance on baselines and results. You’ll own the operating initiative from the initial diagnosis through rollout and ongoing performance.

What we’re looking for

• Strong financial understanding: you can read a P&L, balance sheet and cash flow statement, connect them to business operations, and identify where improvements will affect cash flow.

• Hands-on analytical ability: you can work with messy financial and operating data, build models, test assumptions and make clear recommendations.

• An early adopter of AI who actively tests new tools, applies them to operating workflows, and evaluates whether they improve cost, quality or productivity.

• Experience taking operating improvements from analysis through implementation, with measurable results.

• Strong relationship skills: you can earn trust with firm leaders, managers and frontline staff, including when you’re asking them to change how they work.

• Good judgment about priorities, budgets and return on investment.

• The ability to run several cross-firm initiatives while maintaining clear ownership and follow-through.

• Willingness to travel regularly to build relationships, assess firms and support implementation.

Relevant backgrounds could include portfolio operations, finance and operations, consulting, or leading improvements within a services business. We care most about what you’ve personally analyzed, implemented and delivered.

How we’ll measure success

• Improvement in FCF margin against each firm’s agreed plan.

• Recurring savings and net cash benefit delivered, validated with Finance.

• Return on initiatives against the approved budget and business case.

• Firms meeting their agreed operational standards, with clear plans and owners for remaining gaps.

• Adoption of core processes and sustained improvements in productivity, cycle times and quality, measured with PX and firm leaders.

• Consistent or improved client service as changes roll out.

• Successful playbooks used across multiple firms.

• Pre-acquisition operating assessments that clearly identify needs, costs and opportunities, with transformation plans tested against actual post-close results.

Your first 90 days Build relationships with priority firms and PX, establish the financial and operating baselines, and recommend where we should focus first. Agree the core operational standards, assess the initial firms against them, and set out a practical plan to close the most important gaps. Agree budgets and owners for the highest-return opportunities, launch the first pilots, and put a clear process in place to measure results and expand what works. Alongside that, establish a repeatable operating assessment and benchmarking approach for prospective acquisitions, and apply it to active opportunities as the acquisition pipeline allows.