Operations Manager

Application deadline: 27th October 2024, 11:59 pm London UK time. Applications will be processed on a rolling basis, so early applications are encouraged.

Expected Hours: Full-time (35 hours per week)

Location: London (visa sponsorship and moving costs support available) 

Compensation: Based on needs and location, the typical range in line with our salaries across the organisation is £40,000-50,000 gross per annum.

Start date: As soon as possible, ideally January or February 2025

How to apply: Complete our initial application form by clicking Apply

For more information about this role, and to ask any questions you may have, please sign up to attend our Q&A webinar with Alex Catalán Flores, Director of Operations on October 11th at 4pm BST.

We also recommend reading through our applicant resources.

In Short

We are looking for a talented operations manager who will enable us to keep running operations for AIM itself. This could include human resource management, finance, team productivity improvements and managing the community office workspace, as well as providing support to our incubated high-impact charities, both with their initial set-up and on an ongoing ad hoc basis.

About Ambitious Impact (AIM)

Ambitious Impact (AIM) is a growing nonprofit organisation running training and incubation programs aimed at establishing and supporting a flourishing high-impact, effectiveness-focused philanthropic ecosystem, with a lively community office in East London.

More information is available on our website.

About the Role

People who work in operations have a multiplier effect, increasing the efficiency of their colleagues within the organisation by constructing processes that ensure the organisation operates smoothly and at top capacity. For a great overview of Operations Management as a field, see here. An excellent and more succinct description comes from Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow:

Though it took Sadie years to admit this to Sam, Marx did prove incredibly useful that summer. No, Marx wasn’t a game designer. He wasn’t an ace programmer, like Sadie, and he couldn’t draw, like Sam. But he did almost everything else for them, and his contributions ranged from the pedestrian, but necessary, to the creatively essential. Marx organised workflow, so Sadie and Sam were more aware of what the other was doing and what they needed to be doing. He made long lists of supplies they would need. He was more than liberal with his credit card—they always needed more memory and storage, and they were regularly burning out graphics cards—and he must have made fifty trips to the large computer store in Central Square that summer. He opened a bank account, and an LLC, Go, Ichigo, Go. He arranged for them to pay taxes (which saved them money in the short term by making their business purchases tax-free), and if, at some point, they needed to hire people, which he knew they would, he set them up for that, too. He made sure everyone ate, hydrated, and slept (at least a little), and he kept their workspaces clean and free of chaos.

The Operations team provides operational support to AIM (e.g., human resource management, finance, productivity). The team also supports our incubated charities, assisting with their initial set-up after the program so they can hit the ground running, as well as ongoing ad-hoc requests and advice as needed. Added to this, Operations supports other participants in programs run by AIM(e.g., people completing fellowships with our research team). While this is less than for the Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program, it increases as these programs mature. 

Our Operations team currently consists of ~2.8 FTE – our Chief Operating Officer (previous Managing Director and CTO of Founders Pledge), our Director of Operations (with a mixed background in legal services, management consulting, and scale-up operations), and a Senior Operations Manager (with a background in risk and security management in low- and middle-income countries). The team also relies on external contractors for some of its functions (e.g., bookkeeping, legal advice). 

Specific Responsibilities

The exact % split might vary throughout 2025 depending on AIM’s program strategy and number of programs after our yearly evaluation

Employee experience support

• Supporting the development and implementation of HR initiatives and systems
• Providing advice on policies and procedures
• Assisting in performance management processes
• Supporting the management of disciplinary and grievance issues
• Maintaining employee records according to policy and legal requirements
• Reviewing employment and working conditions to ensure legal compliance

Grants and compliance management support

• Support with processing almost £2M in grants per year for seed grants and other funding circles etc.
• Maintain grant tracking systems and ensure accurate reporting
• Ensure legal and regulatory compliance, particularly in the UK
• Support risk management initiatives, including cybersecurity
• Improve grants-related processes and procedures for efficiency

Event logistics

• Organising internal and external events like our Christmas party, retreats, and community co-working days; contingency planning, determining objectives and conducting post-mortems
• Assisting the Recruitment team with logistics needs (e.g., booking travel and accommodation, getting materials to venues)

Automating workflows and building internal tools

• Identifying opportunities to systematise or automate processes with a view to increasing efficiency
• Responding to internal calls for greater systematisation (e.g. “we need a CRM”), mapping out costs and benefits
• Leveraging spreadsheets, no-code and low-code tools to build internal systems
• Maintaining internal systems and refining based on quick feedback loops and user feedback. 

Overseeing our facilities management

• For our London office and residential accommodation, we are managing an external service provider tasked with the regular upkeep and operation of these facilities. There is some chance that the functions performed by this external service provider are brought in-house, but at the moment we expect this function to remain outsourced and for the Operations Manager to play an overseeing role.  

Ad hoc tasks

• We believe that the above describes the key buckets, but in essence, the Operations team tends to step in and be needed wherever their help is cost-effective to solve or prevent problems

Future Growth Trajectories

Future growth trajectories for excelling hires could look like:

• As an entry-level role, you’d have the opportunity to advance to Senior Operations Manager and eventually Director of Operations (although the latter would depend on a vacancy being available) 
• There would be room for specialising in a specific area of Operations, such as HR or finance
• As part of your professional development, we could explore more technical routes such as investing in coding or no-code training 

Examples of the Work You’ll Be Doing

• After an initial brief, independently organise the entire lifecycle of an event at our office expecting between ~15-50 people to attend. You would know the goal of the event, some parameters like the budget, and would have some light assistance from other staff or external partners with whom we’re co-hosting the event.  
• Effectively acting as an office manager/all-rounder for AIM’s London office. This means overseeing day-to-day operations to ensure smooth functioning, including managing office supplies, coordinating with service providers and contractors, and promptly triaging and resolving issues as they arise. Additionally, it means implementing and improving office policies, such as policies around hotdesking, inviting and vetting guests, meeting room usage, etc. 
• After supporting another department with their work, you realise that a series of manual steps they take could be made much more efficient by creating an automated workflow using Airtable and Zapier. You follow a user-centred design process to collect information about requirements, must-haves and nice-to-haves and then build a prototype to later test and refine. 
• Entirely oversee our managed accommodation for staff and program participants, responding to booking requests and changes, ensuring seamless check-in and check-out procedures, and promptly responding to requests or issues. 
• Knowing AIM’s internal policies and ensuring they’re being followed. For example, reviewing expenditure at the end of the month and checking adherence to our Financial Controls Policy, touching base with staff to check whether they have a professional development plan in place.

About You

This role will likely suit an early to mid-level operations generalist, but we’re also very interested in hearing from more senior operations specialists as there is room for future growth in responsibilities within the organisation depending on competency and expertise. We would also be keen for talented recent graduates applying for this position as many areas of responsibility can be learned by a quick learner fairly fast.

We expect excellent candidates will meet many (but not all) of the criteria below. We encourage you to apply even if you do not meet all of the listed characteristics. In the past, we've offered positions to applicants who demonstrated strong overall potential, providing training to address skill gaps. We prioritise high general ability, a strong work ethic, and alignment with our values, methods, and approach to maximising global impact over specific prior work experience or backgrounds. We sketch a picture of potential ideal candidates to give a more concrete sense of what particularly strong candidates might look like, not to discourage interested readers from applying.

The Ideal Candidate:

• Has a bias to action, meaning they prioritise taking initiative when they see a problem and make decisions quickly to drive progress and maintain momentum
• They are excited to play a supporting role and to step up and take pride in doing whatever needs to be done
• They use techniques that allow them always to be moving forward (e.g. prioritisation, time-boxing), and find it easy to pivot in the face of new information (i.e. don’t succumb to the sunk cost fallacy)
• Learns new skills or becomes familiar with new processes quickly, particularly by diving in head first and learning by doing. 
• Is a highly organised, conscientious person and often relied upon to organise something (e.g., a holiday)
• Leans towards frugal solutions (e.g., the second cheapest product), using 80/20 principles, and cheap tests / MVP testing over perfection where possible
• Has had positive past experiences testing aspects of this role before (e.g., maybe they have organised an event from scratch before and both enjoyed it and had positive results)
• Is thinking of their career trajectory as in operations management or closely related fields rather than as a stepping stone to a different career
• Is generally tech-savvy and, for example, defaults to a spreadsheet or finds appropriate tools when trying to solve a problem
• Is a tactful person who can adeptly communicate about delicate issues

Desirable specific skills and areas of experience include: 

• Previous experience using Google Workspace suite of apps (i.e. Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides)
• Previous experience or willingness to learn how to use Slack, Asana, Airtable and Zapier
• Comfort working in a start-up environment. This means:
• Wearing multiple hats: Ability to take on diverse tasks beyond a single job description.
• Adaptability to change: Thrives in a fast-paced setting where priorities can shift rapidly, and new challenges arise unexpectedly.
• Proactive problem-solving: Takes initiative to identify and address issues independently, often with limited resources.
• Comfort with ambiguity: Operates effectively without always having clear guidelines or established processes, using creativity and resourcefulness.
• Team collaboration: Works closely with a small team, where collaboration and communication are key to success.
• Ownership of projects: Takes full responsibility for projects from conception to completion, often with minimal oversight.

What We Offer

• A job with a large, tangible impact on the world - your work will attract and select the founders of new field-leading charities and for-profit companies, as well as high-impact researchers and AIM staff
• High levels of intellectual challenge, autonomy, variety, and learning on the job
• An informal, fun, warm, and supportive work environment with high talent density. Our office in East London houses about 50% of our staff, dozens of charity founders and staff, and hosts a range of co-working opportunities and social events for the wider impactful entrepreneurship London community
• Become a part of our international network of ambitious, driven entrepreneurs and highly talented philanthropic professionals
• A true start-up culture, including low bureaucracy, a quick and collaborative work spirit, and high levels of talent density
• Significant opportunities to attend events and conferences to represent AIM, including international travel

Benefits

• A flexible working schedule, 30 paid days off per year, and unlimited sick leave
• UK visa sponsorship, if needed, as well as support with moving costs if relocating to London
• An annual costs-covered retreat to bring our whole team together to celebrate our achievements
• A workspace in our vibrant central London office, which is a hub for our program alumni and high-impact organisations/professionals 
• Parental, dependents, and compassionate leave schemes
• A range of other benefits, including a payroll giving scheme, staff tenure donation scheme, contributions towards professional development and IT costs, and a workplace pension
• We are open to discussing specific personalised perks or benefits that may enhance your work experience

Application Process

Our application processes aim to be highly predictive, time-effective, and informative for you. Our process consists only of stages that our best evidence suggests are predictive of success on the job (such as test tasks) rather than more common but less predictive stages (such as cover letters). We only invite candidates to the next stage if we think they have a good chance of passing it, and take care to choose tasks and interview questions that will also give you a good sense of the role and our culture.

Applicants will be asked to complete the following stages:

1. Submitting our general application form (30 minutes to 1 hour),
2. A general test task (2-3 hours) with the top 10 to 30 candidates,
3. An initial interview (15 minutes) with the top 10-20 candidates,
4. A test task simulating the work you would do in your role (2-3 hours) with the top 5-15 candidates,
5. A final, more in-depth interview (~60 minutes) with the final 2-5 candidates.

We will also conduct a reference check before making an offer. Each stage typically takes 1-2 weeks from the end of the application deadline, and we hope to make an offer within ~8 weeks of the application deadline. Ideally, the candidate will begin onboarding as soon as possible after an offer is made. We strongly prefer candidates to join the team by January 2025, but we would consider a different date for an ideal candidate.

​We are committed to fostering a culture of inclusion and encourage individuals with diverse backgrounds and experiences to apply. We especially encourage applications from women, people of colour, and neurodivergent people excited about contributing to our mission. AIM is an equal opportunity employer. If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability or have any other related questions about applying, please contact [email removed - click apply for more details]

A Final Word

Thank you for taking the time to consider applying for this role. If you do not think this specific role is a good fit for you but are excited to work with AIM, please feel free to fill in the same application form as a general expression of interest in working at AIM. Alternatively, consider signing up for our newsletter to be notified of future vacancies and sharing this job description within your network with other potential applicants.

For any questions, reach out to [email removed - click apply for more details].