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We are working with GoldSilver.com in its search for a VP of Operations based in Santa Monica, CA. Founded in 2005, GoldSilver.com is now the most visited online gold and silver dealership in the United States. The firm expects its high growth rate to continue and probably accelerate for the next 5 years.
GoldSilver.com started from cutting-edge economic research of the storms that, at that point, still lay in the future for the U.S. monetary and economic systems. The firm’s founder Mike Maloney wrote the book “RichDad’s Advisor’s Guide to Investing in Gold and Silver”. Published in 2008, it quickly sprang to the #1 selling book on precious metal investing in history. Here’s Mike now …
In an industry that is perceived as full of sharks, GoldSilver.com stands out from its competition by not being a high pressure sales company or a mom and pop coin shop. GoldSilver.com simply educates and offers the opportunity for the client to do what it has done. The company is high energy, mission driven, tech savvy, and youthful. Its core values consist of: Trustworthiness, creativeness, innovativeness, and being customer centric. Maintaining and building on all of these is a high priority.
The firm’s values are: Leadership by example, accuracy in what they do, striving to be the best, innovation in all it does, and being creative/ not competitive.
The Code of Honor that GoldSilver.com lives by (crafted by the whole company) is:
- Mission comes first, team second, individual third
- Always represent the company to the utmost of your ability
- Respect and support teammates, company and mission
- Be on time, keep commitments
- Communicate through proper channels
- Learn from mistakes and celebrate all wins
- Resolve issues calmly and promptly with empathy
- Lead by example, living what they preach
The company has been tactical since its inception and is currently experiencing growth issues relative to systems, people, financial performance, processes, and day-to-day execution. The business needs to be structured to be able to handle a continued growth rate that would take the company from a current staff of 30 to 200 in the next 4 years. The company is seeking a seasoned VP of Operations to address the growth issues, develop business fundamentals, and help us take the company to the next level of profitable growth.
BASIC FUNCTION:
- The VP of Operations will work closely with the president and is responsible for providing leadership for the company’s operations, as well as achieving operating and financial objectives, overseeing the quality of services, overseeing/executing all projects including system builds and implementation, improving ongoing financial growth and responding to industry needs. This executive will focus on bringing continuous improvement and best practice into the company.
- The VP of Operations will ensure that the interests of all employees are served in a manner that is consistent with the company’s values and policies.
- The VP of Operations will identify and implement strategies to improve overall operating income. The successful candidate will have an in-depth understanding of the financial and operational implications of those strategies.
- The VP of Operations will work with the president on long term strategy, mergers and acquisitions.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
LEADERSHIP:
- Develop for corporate approval: Strategy, business objectives, budgets, policies, and plans, which will achieve company growth and profitability goals
- Communicate business objectives and plans within the company. Ensure that plans and policies are consistently understood, correctly interpreted and administered by subordinate managers
- Set the tone for the company’s relationships with its employees, suppliers, customers through policy statements, management actions and written/verbal communication
- Instill at all levels of operations (from the janitor to department heads) the philosophy of continuous improvement. Facilitate a process so that all employees understand what this philosophy is, how they can participate, and that it is an ongoing part of their job. The following key metrics should be targeted for implementation and continuous improvement: Bookings, EBITA profit margins, operating expenses, cash flow, On Time Delivery, lead times, quality, inventory
- Attract, hire, train, develop and direct a staff of professional managers to oversee each of their specific areas of responsibility to achieve company goals and objectives.
- Working with the president, help identify and evaluate potential mergers and acquisitions that will strengthen the company
MANAGEMENT:
- Direct and oversee all operations to achieve planned performance goals
- Ensure that each department is properly organized, staffed, and directed to fulfill its responsibilities
- Assure the development of planning and control systems and other management systems that may be required to ensure effective control of the company
- Supervise immediate subordinates and prescribe broad areas of responsibilities for each subordinate and authority levels regarding policies, contractual commitments, expenditures, and personal actions
- Generate all applicable reporting to corporate and assuring compliance with internal policies and procedures
PLANNING:
- Develop the company’s strategic plan, the annual tactical business plans, the annual budgets and present them to the president
- Analyze and interpret market information in order to develop marketing and sales responses to gain market share and improve profitability
- Be “The Company Worrier” constantly analyzing any weaknesses the firm has currently/ or could have in the future and develop solutions for each problem and potential problem
- Develop procedures to monitor and achieve the annual tactical plans
- Contribute to the development of the company’s vision and mission
RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT:
- Responsible for the development of the organization and personnel, products/services/technology, and appropriate financial resources to secure the position of the company and to facilitate its planned growth
- Ensure the attainment of objectives through the selection, development, motivation, evaluation, and promotion of human resources
COMMUNICATIONS:
- Present and support varied points of view relative to corporate strategy and decision making to the company
- Support the company’s values, principles, vision, mission
- Serve as a voice of customer and between functional heads
OPERATIONS:
- Implement and utilize best in class processes throughout the operations to achieve profit objectives
- Implement Great plains ERP system along with CRM system and trading platform to support business growth
- Prepare and review vendor contracts for final review by president
- Develop key performance metrics to manage the business
- Manage the day to day operations including sales, customer service, accounting, technology, HR, legal, and marketing
- Develop new and grow existing relationships with key customers and support sales to ensure customer satisfaction
- Maintain compliance with all legal requirements and oversee that company is meeting them
- When needed, oversee the expansion of the facility to meet short and long term growth projections
- Review actual performance to plan and take appropriate actions to meet plan
FINANCIAL:
- Recommend revenue and profit goals for each planning period
- Develop and administer overall operating budgets and direct capital expenditures necessary to keep the company competitive
- Ensure that a full financial reporting package is completed accurately in a timely manner
- Identify new and enhance existing processes designed to promote growth, customer service, cost reduction and expense control
- Understand the monthly financial statements and comprehensively explain variances and results in the monthly operations review meeting
- Report Company’s performance versus profit plan goals and recommend corrective actions for underachievement
MUST HAVE QUALIFICATIONS:
- At least 5 Years of senior operations experience in e-commerce
- At least 10 years of proven success in a senior management role in achieving substantial improvements in business operations resulting in significant and steady increases in profitability over the course of several reporting periods
GENERAL QUALIFICATIONS:
- Experience in an ecommerce business with headcount in excess of 300 people
- A minimum of 15 years of general management experience as well as strong financial implications experience within preferably, e-commerce businesses and proven vertical growth with prior P&L responsibilities. Must have demonstrated success at managing all functions including finance, HR, sales & marketing, customer service, quality, supply chain, scheduling, purchasing and information systems
- Demonstrated experience with accountability for managing profitable growth required, along with a thorough understanding of today’s business principles. Must be very comfortable with accounting and financial concepts
- Knowledge in supply chain functions including purchasing, inventory management, order fulfillment, and shipping
- Good experience with forecasting, inventory and asset management and cash control.
- Strong knowledge of and experience with planning and budgeting
- Business degree
PLUSSES WOULD INCLUDE:
- Previous business ownership or involvement in a family business
- A personal interest in investing
- A financial or accounting degree
- An advanced business degree (MBA etc.)
- Experience with a formal business management strategy such as Six Sigma, TQM, etc.
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS:
- Change management: Able to maintain and build on current company culture
- Teamwork: Actively seeks and uses input from others; respects others’ time and talents; puts team goals above personal goals; speaks positively and supportively about team members, customers and company
- Customer Service Orientation: Lead the company in building long-term relationships with its customers with concurrent responsibility for maximizing profit, ensuring the company is meeting Service Level Agreements, keeping communications active, and exceeding expectations
- Continuous Improvement: Continually sets challenging goals; actively seeks feedback for self-improvement; learns from experience and shows high levels of motivation
- Ownership: Focuses on priorities and results; always takes accountability; looks for solutions; decisions reflect a personal stake in the business; passionate about work
- Sales Driven: Seeks opportunities to build the business while working on projects and maintenance tasks. Looks for new leads both inside and outside the current customer base
- Decision Making: Makes decisions in a timely manner, sometimes with incomplete information and under tight deadlines and pressure. Is able to make quick and focused decisions
- Empowers The Team: Makes good hiring decisions, delegates effectively to team members, develops team skills through coaching, training, communication, and mentoring, allows team freedom to make skill decisions while holding them accountable for the results.
- Interpersonal Skills: Relates well to all kinds of people, up, down, and sideways, inside and outside the organization; builds appropriate rapport; builds constructive and effective relationships; uses diplomacy and tact; can diffuse even high-tension situations comfortably. Will be comfortable in developing close relationships in a small marketplace.
- Discernment: Must possess a high level of emotional intelligence, good at reading situations, good at modulating interactive approach to different audiences, and adapting to a broad range of personalities and communication styles.
- Leadership: Strong leader with high energy, but wise to reading and leading teams. Strong verbal and written communications skills required. Able to clearly present goals, direction and support to Principles, Direct Reports and Employees.
100-day Key Initiatives (KPI’s) – Here are the 2-3 clearly defined initiatives that you must complete or make substantial progress against in the first 100 days in order to be considered successful …
- You will have developed a plan for the new system.
- You will have interviewed all of GoldSilver.com’s key stakeholders inside the organization to identify “who goes where.” The client has done a lot of growing with a lot of smart people, but it’s time to be more strategic about who’s doing what. In this role, you need to identify different job functions, best practices, and figure out who needs to do what; what will the organization be structured like; and how can we get the most mileage out of the organization going forward.
- You will need to determine what the leading and lagging indicators of success and KPI’s for each individual role. And ideally, the client would like to link compensation to performance across the organization.
To apply for this position, please send your resume plus answers to the following questions to Allan.Seibert@EcommerceRecruiter.com
- Planning experience: What planning software have you used? Could we see an example of a plan that you’ve written? As background, GoldSilver.com needs a no-nonsense planning superstar to create comprehensible, reality-based, actionable plans for its major objectives for Q2 and Q3, breaking things down into tasks with accountabilities.
- Budgeting: What’s your process for budgeting? Tell us first hand.
- Organizational design: How do you prepare an organization chart? What’s your process for getting top performers in each position in the organization? What’s your process for back filling positions?
- Capacity management: What is your process for handling massive growth in an organization? GoldSilver.com’s growth has been very spikey: The client has had 28x growth in the last few years with lots of peaks and valleys. How should GS organize itself to deal with spiked demand? How can GS maximize its operational capacity either off-balance sheet (if possible) or in-house (cheaply, if absolutely necessary)?
- Metrics: Give us a real life example of some KPI’s that you have developed to improve the performance of your organization. What actions did you take? What were the results?
- Software implementation: What’s your experience in IT planning, gap analysis, and cost / benefit analysis of inhouse vs licensed software? Tell us about your process for vendor selection, implementation, and testing.
Applications for this position are being coordinated by Allan Seibert. Candidates, please be sure to email Allan for a packet of market research and company / competitive intel that will differentiate you in your candidacy. Due to the intensely competitive nature of this search, thorough preparation for these interviews with this proprietary material is strongly recommended.
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