Director of Operations

The Client

Uncover is a fast-growing beauty and skincare brand built for melanin-rich skin. Operating across Kenya and Nigeria, the company is scaling rapidly across e-commerce, retail, and brand channels.

As the business grows in complexity, Uncover is seeking a Director of Operations to act as the operational backbone of the company—bringing structure, systems, and clarity across functions, and enabling the business to scale from its current stage to the next phase of growth.

The Role

As Uncover scales, the biggest constraint is no longer ambition or talent — it is the operational systems, processes, and cross-functional coordination required to run a more complex business.

This role exists to strengthen the company’s operating system, ensuring that strategy translates into clear priorities, disciplined execution, and scalable processes across teams. Working directly with the CEO and leadership team, the Director of Operations will improve how the business runs day-to-day by building systems, strengthening cross-functional execution, and ensuring operational decisions are grounded in financial reality. You will act as the integrator across commercial, finance, supply chain, and product teams, ensuring the company operates as a cohesive, data-driven system rather than siloed functions. You will also directly oversee key functions including Supply Chain, Systems & Processes, Data, Tech and People Operations.

This is a high-impact leadership role at the heart of the business. This role requires strong commercial judgment, the ability to understand the P&L, evaluate trade-offs, and ensure operational decisions drive revenue growth, margin improvement, and overall business performance. It is suited to someone who enjoys solving complex business problems, improving processes, and building the operational backbone of a fast-growing company.

Key Responsibilities

1. Operational Leadership & Cross-Functional Integration

• Proactively step into ambiguous operational challenges and drive resolution.

• Balance strategic leadership with hands-on problem solving to ensure operational issues are identified and resolved quickly.

• Drive cross-functional alignment and decision-making across the business. Act as an integrator across commercial, finance, supply chain, product, and people teams.

• Translate company strategy into clear priorities, plans, and ownership.

• Drive execution of cross-functional initiatives end-to-end.

• Identify operational gaps, inefficiencies, and risks and solve them proactively.

• Ensure decisions move into action quickly with strong follow-through.

• Help leadership prioritise the highest-impact work.

2. Building the Operating System for Scale

• Design and improve core business processes and operating rhythms.

• Build structure, clarity, and accountability across teams.

• Design and implement scalable operating systems, SOPs, and workflows.

• Implement ERP, dashboards, and reporting infrastructure.

• Establish data warehouse and reporting capabilities for real-time decision-making.

• Drive simplification and reduce operational friction across the business.

• Lead automation and systems implementation across functions.

• Identify breakdowns in processes and rapidly implement practical solutions to improve operational efficiency.

3. Supply Chain & Operational Excellence

• Oversee and strengthen supply chain operations across markets.

• Improve inventory management and inventory visibility.

• Reduce leakage and optimise working capital.

• Ensure operational readiness for product launches.

• Support operational scalability across multiple geographies.

• Work closely with teams to troubleshoot day-to-day operational challenges and implement sustainable solutions.

• Take a hands-on approach to resolving operational issues while building long-term systems to prevent recurrence.

4. Data, Analytics & Commercial Performance

• Build and manage data-driven decision-making frameworks.

• Develop dashboards and reporting visibility across teams.

• Partner with finance to ensure alignment between operations and financial performance.

• Read and understand the company P&L to inform operational decisions.

• Support trade-offs across growth, cost, and profitability.

• Improve unit economics and business performance.

• Use data and financial insights to quickly diagnose operational issues and drive corrective action.

5. Strategic Execution

• Act as a thought partner and execution arm to the founders.

• Drive strategic initiatives from concept to execution.

• Support strategic planning cycles and leadership forums.

• Tackle complex, ambiguous business challenges.

• Surface risks, trade-offs, and priorities clearly.

• Filter complexity and ensure CEO focus remains on highest-leverage areas.

• Comfortably switch between strategic thinking and hands-on execution as business needs evolve.

6. Leadership & Team Development

• Lead and develop teams across operations, supply chain, and systems.

• Support organizational design and role clarity.

• Reinforce accountability and performance management.

• Drive adoption of systems and operational improvements.

• Foster a high-performance, and scalable culture.

Skills & Experience

• Education: Bachelor’s Degree in Business, Finance, Economics, or a related field. An MBA is highly preferred.

• Experience: 8–12+ years of progressive leadership in operations, supply chain, or general management.

• Sector Expertise: Proven background in inventory-heavy sectors (e.g., e-commerce, FMCG, logistics) with a focus on high-growth startups or scale-ups.

• Geographic Reach: Experience managing multi-country operations, with a strong preference for candidates who have worked within the African market.

• Financial Stewardship: Full P&L  ownership with a deep foundation in financial analysis. You should possess  a "P&L-driven mindset" that bridges the gap between finance and operational efficiency.

• Systems & Scalability: Expert-level ability to design and implement scalable processes and ERP solutions. You have a track record of building infrastructure that supports rapid growth.

• Operational Execution: Demonstrated success in process optimization, improving or scaling operations within complex, fast-paced environments where structured thinking and execution are paramount.

• Data-Driven Decision Making: A strong analytical approach to problem-solving, using data to drive strategy and operational pivots.

• Stakeholder Management: Exceptional cross-functional leadership skills with the ability to partner effectively at the CEO and Board level.

• Team Development: Proven experience leading diverse teams, fostering accountability, and driving change management initiatives to ensure systems adoption.

• High degree of personal ownership and adaptability; a "delivery-first" mentality combined with the strategic vision to act as a true business partner.

Our Ideal Profile

We value "operational scars" over theory. We are looking for a candidate who has navigated the complexity of inventory-heavy businesses in emerging markets and thrives in the fast-paced, sometimes "confusing" environment of a high-growth brand.