Join to apply for the Director of Operations role at Apolitical
Join to apply for the Director of Operations role at Apolitical
This range is provided by Apolitical. Your actual pay will be based on your skills and experience — talk with your recruiter to learn more.
Base pay range
Overview
* Reporting to: Chief Financial Officer
* Visa sponsorship: Preference for UK national or current visa holder, but not a dealbreaker
* Background checks: Due to the nature of the work we do with global governments and partners, all employees need to pass background checks, verifying your identity, education (if relevant), work history, sanctions, criminal record, adverse financial history, and right to work
* You can expect to hear from us, no matter the outcome, by: 10th September 2025
* Salary expectations: We aim for transparency on salary bands. If our range is misaligned with your expectations, we’d welcome an open conversation as early as possible
Role
This role is key to unlocking Apolitical’s next phase of growth by translating ambition into action and building systems that support scale without slowing us down.
Apolitical is entering a new phase of growth, expanding our teams and bringing more structure and rigour to how we scale, sell and deliver. As part of this shift, we’re creating a Director of Operations role to take over the day-to-day running of Operations from our CFO.
This is a great opportunity for someone who thrives in a scale-up environment, bringing structure to complexity, enabling cross-functional delivery, and helping a mission-led organisation operate with greater commercial focus.
Team
You’ll report to the CFO and work closely with our CEO and leaders across Sales, Partnerships, and Product. This role is not currently part of the senior leadership team but interacts regularly with it and plays a key role in operational strategy. This role will have two to three direct reports.
Tasks and remit
You’ll work across teams to align commercial, delivery, and internal priorities with effective systems and clear decision-making. You’ll own key operational pillars to tighten execution and strengthen how we serve partners and public servants.
You’ll be responsible for:
* Running and evolving our OKR process and planning rituals
* Owning legal and contracting processes with governments, multilaterals, and corporates
* Maintaining the operational finance function (e.g. EMI/EIS, pricing reconciliation, P&L oversight)
* Strengthening our compliance function alongside our Compliance Lead
* Building scalable systems that enable execution without adding unnecessary complexity
* Responsible for strategic finance, as that remains with our CFO
* Acting in a purely administrative capacity. This is a strategic, hands-on, and coaching-heavy role
We expect most team members to achieve the following milestones:
Within one month, you will…
* Understand our current planning, legal and financial ops systems
* Build strong working relationships with direct reports and peers
* Begin co-owning the OKR and planning process
Within three months, you will…
* Fully lead the company-wide OKR cycle
* Oversee and be ultimately accountable for legal, contracting and compliance
* Identify a major system or process to upgrade
Within six months, you will…
* Deliver a key operational improvement (e.g. legal process redesign, financial tooling)
* Elevate team performance through coaching and structured support
* Embed a company-wide calendar of planning, review, and accountability
About you
This is a great fit if you:
* Have operations experience at high-growth start-ups or scale-ups, across planning, legal, compliance, and financial ops
* Are a strategic executor — turning vision into action and leading OKRs across teams
* Have led complex legal or contracting negotiations, ideally with governments or large institutions
* Are fluent in operational finance and comfortable making judgement-heavy decisions alongside a CFO
* Use frameworks and heuristics to coach others through risk and ambiguity
* Are a first-principles thinker who breaks down complexity into its component parts and identifies levers for impact
* Have built and coached high-performing teams — you're known as a force multiplier
* Are a doer by default — ready to roll up your sleeves but skilled at stepping back to empower others
* Thrive on improving systems to enable faster, better outcomes
Let us know if you have…
* Worked with government or foundation and multilateral partners
* Owned a People/HR function, especially around talent systems and culture-building
* Built or upgraded a compliance programme (regulatory or industry-specific)
Don’t meet every single expectation? We know that women and people of colour are less likely to apply unless they meet 100% of criteria. If you’re excited about this role but your experience doesn’t align perfectly, please apply anyway — you may be the right candidate for this or another role.
Seniority level
* Seniority level
Director
Employment type
* Employment type
Full-time
Job function
* Job function
Legal, Finance, and Strategy/Planning
* Industries
Technology, Information and Internet
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