Position: Chief Operating Officer
Type: Full-time, 32 hours, 4 day working week
Pay: £100,000-£120,000 + company performance bonus
About WeBuyVintage
WeBuyVintage is the UK's largest face-to-face buyer of jewellery, antiques and collectables. We run more valuation events than any other company in the country - over 250 roadshows every month - putting trusted experts face-to-face with customers in community spaces nationwide. Alongside this, our rapidly scaling nationwide home-visit service and a growing network of in-store selling locations reinforce our commitment to in-person service.
Co-founded three years ago around a pub table, we've already built a profitable £60m+ turnover business without any external investment. We're on a mission to make WeBuyVintage a brand everyone recognises.
To get there, we need someone who can take what's working, industrialise it, and build the operating engine for the next stage of growth - while opening up the next waves of locations, formats and revenue lines.
The Opportunity
We're looking for a Chief Operating Officer to be the operational counterweight - and thought partner - to our co-founder-CEO. You'll run the day-to-day, sharpen execution across the business, and build the processes, structures and leadership bench a £60m+ field business needs to scale to the ambitions we're aiming for.
You'll split your time between tightening the machine we already have - events, home visits, stores, revenue generation, logistics - and driving the next phases of growth: new locations, formats, products and, where relevant, international opportunities.
This is the number-two role in the company, and the first of a new wave of senior hires. We plan to add a other C-suite positions over the next 12 with whom you'll work closely.
You'll inherit a business with strong momentum, a hungry team and a proven model - and a CEO who's committed to giving you genuine ownership of operations so he can focus on brand, strategy and growth.
What You'll Own
Run the business day-to-day
- Lead operations across roadshows, home visits, in-store locations, valuations, buying, stock processing, logistics, customer experience and back office
- Translate strategy into operational plans, budgets, milestones and deliverables - and make sure they actually happen
- Set the operating rhythm - weekly business reviews, monthly performance forums, quarterly planning - so everyone knows what "good" looks like and how we're tracking
- Oversee the systems, dashboards and controls a high-volume, field-based business needs to scale, with a single version of the truth on performance
Scale field operations
- Industrialise the roadshow and home-visit engines - event planning, venue strategy, valuer scheduling, security, logistics, brand standards and conversion
- Build playbooks that let us add events, regions and locations without losing quality or unit economics
- Balance efficiency and expansion - improve or maintain yield, conversion, operational cost-per-event and customer experience on today's events while testing and scaling new formats, locations and channels
- Spend meaningful time at operational business sites across the UK, including on the road at events, so you stay close to how the machine really works
Build the leadership and organisation
- Lead, coach and stretch the senior/management team; raise the bar on hiring, performance and accountability
- Design the organisation for the next stage of growth - structure, spans and layers, workforce planning and succession for key roles
- Identify gaps in the org and build the bench we'll need as we scale, including preparing for the arrival of future C-Suite roles
- Embed a culture of ownership, pace, transparency and customer obsession across the business, not just at the top table
- Partner closely with People/HR (and help shape that function if needed) on frontline hiring, retention, training and incentives for valuers, buyers and field teams
Drive commercial performance
- Own the P&L alongside the CEO and the Board - costs, margin, cash and working capital - balancing tight discipline with smart investment in growth
- Use data to spot opportunities and unlock margin: event economics, buying margin, stock turn, pricing, logistics and team productivity
- Lead pricing and revenue discipline, buying margin improvement and stock-turn optimisation so we're making the right money on what we buy and sell
- Turn operational data into action - build a simple, trusted metrics stack across events, home visits and stores and use it to decide where to double down, where to fix and where to stop
- Partner with the existing board and future C-Suite on financial planning and company performance management, commercial initiatives and growth bets
Build the operating chassis for scale
- Influence the roadmap and adoption of ERP, CRM and ops tooling in partnership with tech providers - ensuring clean data, useful data and frontline adoption
- Standardise the core model while leading transformation projects: site openings, new regional hubs, acquisitions, new acquisition or revenue channels and, where relevant, international expansion
- Ensure we stay on top of risk, compliance and governance - AML, KYC, precious-metals rules, data protection, health & safety and other relevant frameworks - embedded in how we work, not bolted on
- Prepare and present operational and commercial performance to the board and the CEO as the business matures
What Success Looks Like in Your First 12 Months
By the end of year one, you will have:
- Stabilised and codified the roadshow and home-visit engines so we can grow events and visits by 100%+ while maintaining or improving unit economics
- Implemented core ERP/CRM and built a simple metrics stack that the senior team uses to run the business day-to-day
- Upgraded and/or helped shape the senior team and org structure so it's fit for the next phase of growth and ready for additional C-Suite roles to plug into
- Opened or integrated multiple new operational locations and tested new business initiatives, with clear, data-driven go/no-go decisions
- Built a trusted operating partnership with the CEO and laid the foundations for a high-performing exec team
What We're Looking For
You've done this before. You don't need us to explain what a great operating cadence looks like, or why a stock-turn metric matters.
Essential
- 5+ years in senior operations roles, including as a COO, Operations Director, MD or equivalent in a fast-moving, multi-site or field-based business
- A track record of both fixing and scaling - you've taken a messy, high-growth operation, put structure under it, and then pushed it into a new phase of growth (more sites, channels or products)
- Strong commercial and financial acumen - you read a P&L like a story and know which numbers actually move it
- Demonstrated success building and stretching senior teams, not just managing them - including org design and succession planning
- Proven ability to turn data into decisions - you build simple, robust metrics and use them to drive change on the ground
- Comfort with ambiguity and pace - equally happy fixing a process today and designing the org chart for 2028
- Pragmatic, hands-on style - this isn't a role for someone who needs a chief of staff to run their diary
- High integrity and comfort operating in high-trust environments - you set the tone on compliance and doing the right thing by customers
Desirable
- Background in consumer, retail, field services, logistics or other high-volume operational businesses
- Experience in jewellery, antiques, precious metals, watches or comparable categories
- Exposure to AML, KYC or precious-metals regulatory frameworks
- Experience working closely with a founder-CEO, and comfort working with a Board whilst operating at the most senior levels
What You Won't Be
- Looking for a quiet life - we're growing fast and that means constant change
- A pure strategist - we need someone who'll get into the detail and spend time where the action is
- A politician - we move fast and decide directly
What You'll Get
- Base salary £100,000–£120,000 depending on experience
- Annual company performance bonus
- 4-day working week, Monday–Thursday (yes, we mean it)
- 20 days holiday plus bank holidays
- Bright Exchange employee discounts and perks
- Employee Assistance Programme — 24/7 confidential support for you and your immediate family
- BrightHR on-demand professional development platform
- A front-row seat as we build a household-name British brand
