COO and operations executive search.
INC'D recruits Chief Operating Officers, VPs of Operations and operational leaders for PE-backed field and essential services platforms.
Strategy reaches the customer through operations.
In essential services, operational performance lives in the field: dispatch, labor utilization, route density, first-time fix, service quality, branch leadership and the integration of newly acquired teams.
The right operations leader can standardize what must be consistent without breaking the local knowledge that makes a branch work. The wrong one centralizes the slide deck and loses the field.
Roles we recruit.
What we assess.
- Multi-site field leadership at relevant scale.
- Metrics used to run dispatch, productivity, quality and customer experience.
- Integration of acquired field operations.
- Experience building regional and branch-management depth.
- Systems implementation in a live operating environment.
- Willingness to go to the branch when the numbers and the reality disagree.
Where operations searches go wrong.
The wrong operating model
Route-based, dispatch-based, crew-based and project-based businesses run on different measures. An operations leader from one model often brings the wrong instincts to another.
Integration treated as a side project
Moving acquired companies onto shared software, pricing and procedures without losing their customers is the core of the job.
Workforce left to HR
Technician supply, licensing and retention decide capacity. The best operations leaders treat them as operating priorities.
Density ignored
Stops per day, drive time and utilization usually move earnings more than new revenue does.
How the role changes by vertical.
- Roofing
- VP of Operations. Schedules around the weather, manages subcontracted crews across acquired brands, scales up quickly after a storm and buys materials well. Materials are a large share of every job, so this leader is part field executive and part supply chain manager.
- Restoration
- VP of Operations. Runs equipment, technician dispatch, response times and field documentation, the things insurers score contractors on. Also oversees reconstruction, which is a different, project-based discipline.
- Pool Service
- VP of Operations. Drives technician productivity and route density across branches, and moves acquired businesses onto shared scheduling, chemical standards and procedures without losing their customers.
- Cleaning
- VP of Operations. Leads field teams across several regions and acquired businesses. The layer that turns strategy into what happens on site.
- Electrical
- VP of Operations. Coordinates many projects at once, makes daily decisions about where licensed labor goes, and brings acquired companies onto common standards.
- Elevator
- VP of Operations. Accountable for units under contract, response times, modernization delivery and technician utilization, and for moving acquired companies onto shared dispatch and safety standards without losing their customers.
- Fire & Life Safety
- VP of Operations. Deploys scarce certified technicians against inspection schedules that cannot slip, builds route density and manages relationships with local fire officials that do not transfer from one market to the next.
- Garage Doors
- VP of Operations. Accountable for revenue per truck, install times, parts turnover and technician utilization, and for moving acquired companies onto shared systems and pricing without losing their local relationships.
How INC'D runs the search.
We define the operational problem before beginning recruitment: field productivity, branch performance, dispatch, service quality, integration or management depth. Candidates are tested against the metrics and operating environments they have personally led. A typical shortlist contains three to five qualified operations leaders within two to four weeks of engagement.
How our executive search works →
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