Manager - Strategy & Operation

Manager Strategy & Operations

About the Role

This role sits in the office which oversees five diverse functions: Purchase, B2B business (full P&L), Warehousing & Logistics, Factory (activity kit manufacturing), and Construction (greenfield, brownfield and built-to-suit school projects).

The Manager Strategy & Operations will act as the operational backbone of this office — a one-person PMO who ensures that reviews are data-ready, decisions are documented, commitments are tracked to closure. This is a high-visibility role with direct exposure to CEO/CFO-level reviews and cross-functional leadership, and is designed as a launchpad into a business or functional leadership position within 24–36 months.

Key Responsibilities

1. Review Cadence & Meeting Management

• Own the weekly review calendar across all five functions — agendas, pre-reads and dashboard readiness before every meeting.
• Ensure function heads update KPI dashboards prior to reviews; escalate non-compliance.
• Capture decisions and risks from every review in a concise, standardised format (meeting log, not prose minutes).

2. Action Tracking & Follow-Through

• Maintain the central action register: every commitment logged with a single owner, due date and status.
• Chase overdue items between meetings so the leader is never the reminder mechanism; publish a weekly ageing summary.
• Run the daily flash reporting process for Purchase, Warehouse and Factory.

3. Business Analytics & Reporting

• Prepare a Monday morning one-pager: key variances, risks, and decisions required for the week.
• Build and maintain function-wise KPI dashboards — B2B bookings/collections/DSO, construction progress vs. budget, factory output, dispatch TAT and fill rates, purchase turnaround.
• Conduct ad-hoc analyses: discount trends, cost benchmarking, collection ageing, vendor performance, project overrun early-warning.

4. Cross-Functional Coordination & Special Projects

• Prepare and drive the weekly cross-functional review; track inter-departmental blockers to resolution.
• Lead 2–3 special projects per year end-to-end (e.g. process automation, cost reduction, new dashboard/MIS rollout, warehouse or factory efficiency initiatives).
• Coordinate with CEO/CFO office on materials for monthly and quarterly business reviews.

5. Communication & Confidentiality

• Draft business notes, review summaries and internal communications on behalf of the leader’s office.
• Handle commercially sensitive information (pricing, margins, vendor terms, P&L data) with complete discretion.

Candidate Profile

• Experience: 2–6 years of experience in consulting, corporate strategy, founder’s office / chief of staff roles, program management, or business operations. High-growth consumer, education, supply chain or manufacturing exposure is a plus.
• Education: MBA from a reputed institute preferred, or equivalent analytical rigour demonstrated through work. Engineering or commerce background welcome.
• Skills: Strong analytical and Excel/BI skills; comfort building dashboards and working with tools such as Notion, Google Workspace and AI productivity tools. Ability to structure ambiguous problems quickly.
• Temperament: High ownership and follow-through — someone who closes loops without being asked. Comfortable respectfully chasing people far senior in tenure. Low ego, high discretion, thrives on breadth and pace.
• Mobility: Willingness to travel occasionally to school sites, warehouses and the factory.