Chief Operations Officer
The Sill, United States
Job Description
The Sill is an omni-channel consumer brand offering plants and biophilic design to increase your connectivity to the natural world.
We are seeking an executive level operator to support fast, yet sustainable growth. The opportunity is highly entrepreneurial, requiring the ambition to grow The Sill into a category-disrupting billion dollar business.
Location
The team is working remotely at this time but the role is based in the greater New York City area. The role requires up to 30% travel to our distribution center (NJ), retail stores, vendors and 3PL partners.
Role Description
The COO will oversee: supply chain, inventory management and warehousing, fulfillment and return logistics, as well as the functional operations that support commerce: engineering amp; technology, customer service, and compliance. You will be a direct report of, and partner to, the CEO of the company. As a member of the Leadership Team you will help deliver on the vision of the Company by operationalizing our OKRs.
The ideal candidate is a seasoned operator with direct, hands-on experience across diverse and complex business operations. The role requires exceptional business acumen and analytical abilities, excellent people skills, and the ability to implement and scale best-in-class operational practices across a variety of teams and functions. You should be data and systems driven, rigorous and disciplined, while being well versed in building and maintaining strong relationships. Developing, motivating and leading teams will be critical to your success.
Responsibilities
The role requires close cooperation and co-creation with partner functions including Finance, Marketing, Merchandising, Retail, and the People team. Your impact will be on both the top and bottom line and in support of company culture.
- Serve as a thought leader and key deputy to the CEO in driving performance of the business infrastructure, as well as serving as a key operational partner to other functional leaders.
- Collaborate with the CEO, CFO and People team to develop the short, mid and long term organization design; in some cases, standing up and owning new functional areas of the business.
- Lead and oversee The Sill’s end-to-end supply chain: international and domestic sourcing, procurement, receiving, QC, inventory management, warehousing, packaging, distribution, fulfillment and customer service, including all relevant regulatory and compliance aspects.
- Lead and oversee The Sill’s operational support teams including Customer Experience, Eng amp; Tech, insurance and compliance.
- Oversee the commercialization process of product, category, and channel launches - a collaboration between Strategy, Merchandising, Planning, Supply Chain, and Eng amp; Tech. Process varies between live plants and plant care, drop ship, and products designed in-house; as well as between .com, brick amp; mortar retail, and third party channels.
- Partner with Finance on inventory planning, forecast and budget creation, and Pamp;L management with ownership and accountability to the product and gross margin KPIs.
- Partner with Marketing to operationalize and optimize our value proposition and customer experience, resulting in new customer experiences and touchpoints and a positive impact to our NPS score. Requires strategic and creative thinking.
- Oversee our Director of Engineering amp; Technology to reduce the operational load of the organization by streamlining our systems architecture, consistently depleting our tech and ops debt.
- Foster a culture of collaboration, speed, excellence, mentorship, and thoughtful work environment that emphasizes transparency, teamwork, and healthy preparation.
- Act in the role of Board observer, regularly presenting to The Sill’s Board of Directors on short, mid amp; long-term performance and plans.
Requirements
- 15+ years in operational roles, including executive-level experience
- Direct-to-consumer omni-channel expertise (e-comm and retail) in an inventory based business (experience with perishable inventory a plus)
- Prior leadership experience in the areas this role oversees (supply chain, logistics, legal/compliance, and technology/infrastructure)
- A demonstrated track record of implementing the appropriate systems, organizational structures, and processes to achieve the organization’s KPIs; an expert collaborator who can solve for this across their own teams and others
- An operator that understands how to optimize and scale a still-evolving business model, while being a co-steward of delivering on the customer experience (ie can distinguish between cost drivers that are differentiating vs those that need to be reduced or eliminated without impacting business functionality)
- A dynamic, empathic leader ab