Head of Operations

About the role: Candela is building a new standard in private education - delivering premium support to families and students across the globe. As Head of Operations, you'll own end-to-end commercial growth, manage global service delivery, and build the operating system that allows us to scale. This is a high-autonomy, high-accountability role with significant responsibility but tremendous upside.

This is a key leadership position with significant responsibility, rapid exposure, and direct access to the founders. It's an opportunity to grow with the business, share in the upside, and leave your mark on a fast-moving company.

Key Responsibilities:

• Partner Acquisition & Account Management
  • Own the full commercial pipeline: lead generation → pitch → close → onboard
  • Negotiate partnership agreements and activate partner channels
  • Manage all partnerships (with white-glove service); upsell and expand accounts
  • Lead discovery & scoping calls with prospective clients
• Operational Excellence & Automation
  • Build and optimise workflows, iterate SOPs
  • Deploy CRM, BI, and AI tooling to automate operations and measure KPIs
  • Run weekly operations reviews and deliver margin, utilisation, and service metrics
  • Own all invoicing and financial reconciliation
• Tutor / Mentor / Advisor Management
  • Lead end-to-end recruitment, onboarding and performance tracking of tutors
  • Coordinate capacity planning in collaboration with Education Manager
• Client Escalation & Quality
  • Lead dispute resolution and ensure rapid service recovery
  • Analyse root causes, extract insights, and feed into process improvements

Requirements Required Skills & Experience: Non-negotiables:

• Fluent, polished English. Native-level speaking and writing; proven rapport-builder with C-suite, partners and clients.
• Academic Excellence. Candidates must hold a good degree from a leading UK or US university, with preference given to those from top-ranked institutions
• Executional ownership. You must be able to take full ownership of commercial and operational delivery from Day 1 (We will provide full training and onboarding on the education side)
• Experience in commercial operations / consultative B2B sales
• Proven track record of owning and closing 6-figure commercial deals
• Mastery of workflow design, SOP implementation and SaaS tooling (HubSpot, Notion, BI tools)
• Financial & commercial fluency: margin management, pricing strategy, P&L, and budget control

Ideal Candidate Profile:

• Ownership Mindset: You thrive in high-growth environments and take full ownership of your domain. You want to build something.
• Commercial Operator: You are revenue-driven, data-literate, and naturally persuasive. You win and grow commercial partnerships with rigour
• Structured & Strategic: You bring structure to ambiguity - designing processes, dashboards, and systems that scale global operations efficiently
• Globally Adaptable: You're comfortable working across time zones and cultures, and naturally adapt to different stakeholders
• Calm & Reliable: You manage complexity with composure, follow through without fail, and value clarity, consistency and excellence

Benefits Why Candela

• Lead a core function at an ambitious, global education company
• Geographic flexibility and travel opportunities
• Build on a strong foundation and shape our commercial engine
• Operate with real autonomy, velocity and ownership
• Share in the company's success. You'll be compensated in proportion to the results you deliver - not just your time. This role suits someone who wants meaningful performance upside and direct accountability

Compensation Competitive base salary supplemented by a substantial performance bonus.

The compensation model is weighted heavily toward results - ideal for candidates confident in delivering strong outcomes and client satisfaction.

Total earnings up to £120,000+, based on delivery and results.

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