Operations Manager

The Operations Manager runs the operational backbone of the business and acts as the Management Representative for our Integrated Management System. You will keep day-to-day operations running smoothly and compliantly — procurement, supplier, asset and access management, business continuity, document control and cross-department coordination across our UK and Philippines teams — while owning the QMS, ISMS and AIMS: maintaining them, keeping them audit-ready, running internal audits and management reviews, and driving continual improvement. You will also run the quarterly project cadence that keeps every department's projects on track. It is a hands-on governance and operations leadership role reporting directly to the Managing Director, with scope to build an Operations Assistant function and automate recurring work.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
Integrated Management System & governance (Management Representative)
• Establish, maintain and continually improve the IMS across ISO 9001, ISO 27001 and ISO 42001, and report its performance to top management.
• Own the internal audit programme end-to-end — plan, schedule, conduct or coordinate audits, log findings and drive them to closure; act as primary liaison with BSI and external/certification auditors.
• Organise and facilitate management reviews; capture minutes, decisions and actions.
• Run document control: the controlled-document register, version control, scheduled reviews and approvals.
• Coordinate nonconformity and corrective/preventive action (NC/CAPA) across all three systems, tracking each to closure.
• Own the integrated risk & opportunity process: maintain the register, facilitate assessments,
drive treatments and recommend residual-risk acceptance to the Managing Director.
• Steward the scope, Statement of Applicability, policies and objectives, keeping them current.

Project & portfolio governance
• Run the quarterly project cadence across the business — review each department's projects to ensure they are running as planned, on scope and on schedule.
• Maintain the project tracker; surface slippage, risks, blockers and dependencies, and hold owners to their commitments.
• Report project status and portfolio health to the Managing Director, and keep BAU (run) work and project (change) work clearly separated.

Compliance, information security & risk
• Administer information-security operations: asset inventory, access identities and periodic user-access reviews, supplier/third-party security management, BYOD compliance, i ---------- logging and coordination, and change management.
• Maintain the legal, regulatory and contractual requirements register and coordinate operational compliance (UK GDPR/data protection, sector and AI-governance obligations).
• Own business-continuity and disaster-recovery readiness — plans, drills and tests.

Operations & resource management
• Run the procurement and purchasing process, including supplier onboarding and due diligence.
• Coordinate cross-department alignment – weekly scoreboards and accountability, townhall inputs and BAU governance.
• Manage company tooling and the asset lifecycle; support operational budgeting.

People & culture (in partnership with HR)
• Support HR on onboarding/offboarding, the recruitment pipeline, the training & competence framework, the PDP cycle and rota/payroll oversight (HR owns execution).
• Champion an accountability culture across the UK and Philippines teams, and maintain the competence & awareness (training) matrix.

Performance, reporting & continual improvement
• Own monitoring and measurement – KPIs, scoreboards and performance evaluation – and report to leadership.
• Drive continual improvement and manage organisational change.

Leadership, delegation & automation
• Line-manage the operations and people-support functions; delegate effectively, and build and develop an Operations Assistant role.
• Use work-management tooling ( ---------- ) and AI-enabled automation to streamline recurring governance and BAU work.


QUALIFICATIONS, EXPERIENCE & TRACK RECORD
We are hiring for experience. What you have actually run matters far more to us than the certificates you hold — a strong operator who has genuinely owned a live management system will always beat a certificate on its own. You should be able to point to concrete examples for most of the below.
• 5+ years in operations, quality or business-management roles, including at least 2 years managing people or running a function.
• Hands-on experience owning or running a live, ISO-certified management system in day-to-day operation — ISO 9001 and/or ISO 27001 (ISO 42001 a plus). This means having actually maintained it — document control, internal audits, management reviews, corrective actions and risk — not simply holding a certificate.
• Direct experience of external certification audits — preparing for and being audited by a certification body (e.g. BSI or similar) and taking findings and nonconformities through to closure.
• Proven experience running internal audits (ISO 19011 principles) and managing NC/CAPA and a risk & opportunity register.
• Experience running a regular project review or cadence and keeping delivery on track across multiple teams or departments.
• Practical experience of information-security governance operations — access reviews, asset management, supplier/third-party risk, i ---------- handling and business continuity.
• Experience of document control / management-system administration.
• Experience coordinating distributed or offshore teams (e.g. UK and Philippines) and working across time zones.
• Hands-on with ---------- or a comparable work-management platform, and comfortable using automation or AI to reduce manual work.
• Experience line-managing, delegating and building out a team or an assistant function.
• Sound data-protection / UK GDPR awareness and the discretion to handle confidential security, HR and commercial information.
• Excellent English communication and stakeholder management at all levels, including with senior leadership and external auditors.
• Highly organised and self-directed — able to manage many concurrent recurring obligations to deadline with minimal supervision.
We prioritise proven experience over formal qualifications. A relevant degree (business, operations, quality or information management) is welcome but not essential, and ISO / audit certifications are a nice-to-have rather than a prerequisite — we will happily consider candidates whose hands-on track record demonstrates the same capability.

DESIRABLE/NICE TO HAVE (not required)
None of the below is essential — they are advantages. Where a certification is listed, equivalent hands-on experience is valued just as highly.
• ISO 27001 and/or ISO 9001 Lead Auditor or Internal Auditor certification – a bonus, not a prerequisite.
• A project-management qualification or method (e.g. PRINCE2, Agile) or a comparable delivery track record.
• ISO 42001/AI-governance exposure.
• Cyber Essentials familiarity; a data-protection qualification (e.g. GDPR Practitioner, CIPP/E).
• Procurement/vendor-management experience.
• Continual-improvement methods (Lean, Six Sigma) or change-management exposure.
• Experience in a SaaS or technology business.

If you’re ready to be a part of a team and are eager to pursue a path of continuous learning and career growth, we encourage you to apply and join us. Send your CV to ----------