Head of Operations

Department: Operations & Delivery

Target Workforce Scale: 1,500 - 2,000+ FTEs (Annotators, QA Specialists, Team Leads, Project Managers)

Role Summary

We are seeking a Head of Operations to own end-to-end service delivery across a multi-shift workforce of 1,500 to 2,000+ operational headcount.

In this role, you will lead the strategic planning, daily execution, process optimization, unit economics, and quality governance for all client data pipelines. You will manage a structured operational hierarchy - including Operations Managers, Delivery Leads, Quality Assurance Teams, and thousands of frontline annotators - ensuring exceptional SLA adherence, strict throughput targets, and cost-efficient delivery.

Key Responsibilities

1. Large-Scale Operational Leadership & Delivery:

- Workforce Management: Direct end-to-end operations across a multi-tiered workforce of 1,500 - 2,000+ resources handling computer vision, text, audio, video, and GenAI annotation.

- SLA & Delivery Excellence: Ensure 100% on-time delivery across concurrent client projects while maintaining client-mandated accuracy benchmarks (often >99.9%).

- Shift & Floor Management: Optimize multi-shift rotations, seat management, facility utilization, and remote/hybrid work policies.

2. Process Optimization & Quality Control:

- Quality Assurance Frameworks: Work alongside the Quality Head to enforce multi-stage auditing, cross-validation, and error-budgeting mechanisms.

- Process Automation & Tooling: Partner with internal Product & Engineering teams to integrate automated QA tooling, AI-assisted labelling tools, and operational tracking dashboards.

- Continuous Improvement: Institutionalize Lean / Six Sigma methodologies to minimize rework rates and streamline annotation workflows.

3. Financial Management & Resource Utilization:

- Unit Economics: Drive resource utilization metrics (>85% productive billable hours) and manage cost-per-annotation parameters to protect gross margins.

- Capacity Planning: Collaborate with Workforce Management (WFM) and Talent Acquisition to accurately forecast hiring, bench strength, training cycles, and sudden ramp-up requests from enterprise clients.

- Budget Oversight: Own operational P&L components, controlling OPEX, infrastructure overheads, overtime costs, and incentive distribution.

4. Client Delivery & Stakeholder Engagement:

- Enterprise Account Delivery: Serve as the executive escalation point for major enterprise clients regarding project SLAs, operational bottlenecks, and throughput speed.

- Governance Meetings: Participate in Weekly/Monthly Business Reviews (WBR/MBR) with global clients to communicate performance metrics and scale readiness.

5. People Leadership & Culture:

- Leadership Development: Mentor and build a strong second-line leadership team (Senior Operations Managers, Delivery Managers, Shift Incharges).

- Attrition & Engagement: Maintain low attrition rates across frontline teams through structured career progression paths, performance-linked incentives, and a positive floor culture.

- Compliance & Security: Enforce strict adherence to client data security protocols, clean-room environments, ISO/SOC 2 requirements, and NDA compliances.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

- SLA Compliance: 98% on-time project completion across all active client accounts.

- Quality Accuracy: Target 99.5% output precision prior to client delivery.

- Seat / Resource Utilization: Target 85% billable capacity.

- Gross Margin Impact: Optimization of operational cost per annotated unit.

- Workforce Attrition: Keep operational headcount churn under industry average standards (<20% annually).

Candidate Qualifications & Experience

Required Background:

- Experience: 12+ years of core operations experience in BPO, KPO, Tech-enabled Services, or AI/Data Outsourcing industries.

- Proven Scale: Must have direct experience managing operations for 1,500 to 2,000+ FTEs in a high-volume, delivery-driven environment.

- Domain Knowledge: Strong familiarity with data annotation, AI training data workflows, computer vision (bounding boxes, segmentation, LiDAR), or digital content moderation is highly desirable.

- Educational Qualification: Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Operations, Business Administration, or related fields. MBA from a reputable institute preferred.

Core Competencies & Skills:

- Large-Scale Team Management: Proven capability in leading multi-layered teams (Managers - Team Leads - QA - Annotators).

- Data-Driven Operations: Mastery of operational metrics, queue management, throughput modeling, and WFM software.

- Lean / Six Sigma: Certified Black Belt / Green Belt preferred.

- Communication: Exceptional executive communication skills for interacting with international clients (US/EU/APAC time zones).