Operations Manager

We are a private design studio that builds and supports a portfolio of companies and projects across software, hardware, hospitality, and more. Some of what we build stays in house; some spins out. We also run an early‑stage investment fund and an accompanying cohort program for founders. This company is not Expa, but is an affiliate of Expa's.

We are looking for an Operations Manager who treats operations as a product rather than a back office — someone who builds the infrastructure that lets a small team and a changing set of projects move quickly without breaking things.

The role is weighted toward our fund and cohort program, which will take roughly 60% of your time. The other 40% supports the rest of the portfolio: reviewing the monthly financials, keeping budgets honest, handling insurance and registrations, routing work between legal, finance, and engineering, and making sure each project gets set up properly and stays ahead of what it owes.

Most of our project leads are engineers, and designers focused on their product. You are the person who notices the insurance renewal, the registration deadline, or the contract that never got countersigned — and gets it handled.

This is a mid‑senior, self‑directed seat. You will own the operations function rather than staff it. We are a small team and we are not going to hand you a queue — we are looking for someone who sets the priorities, makes most of the calls themselves, and has the judgment to know which decisions to make and move on, which to make and then tell us about, and which to bring to us first.

• Fund and program operations: Support the fundraising process operationally, maintain investor tracking and the program budget, and manage payment milestones for participating companies.

• Founder support: Help early‑stage companies get spun up and hold them accountable to their timelines and milestones.

• Financial review and budget: Review monthly financials with our outside accountants and keep budgets current across the studio and each project — flagging variances early rather than at quarter end. Update opex based on monthly trends.

• Insurance: Own insurance end to end for each new project and entity — applications, quote review, underwriting, renewals, and certificates — working directly with our broker.

• Operating rhythm: Own agendas, inputs, and follow‑ups for the weekly operations meeting, pipeline review, and monthly business review.

• Project onboarding and offboarding: Get new teams set up with the tools, accounts, and administrative support they need on day one, and support clean close‑outs when a project ends.

• Legal coordination: Coordinate between project teams and outside counsel on trademarks, patents, terms and privacy policies, consulting agreements, and NDAs — and track each to completion.

• Entity and vendor setup: Registrations, compliance agents, and third‑party services across entities and project websites.

• Check‑ins and escalation: Meet regularly with each project lead, track open threads to closure, and surface to leadership what they need to see with enough context to act on.

• First point of contact: Be the default person teams come to — answering, or pointing to the right owner.

• Events and programming: Plan and run events and professional development programming.

• 4-8+ years of experience in operations, chief of staff, or program management roles, with meaningful time inside a venture fund, private equity firm, accelerator, or startup. We care more about how you operate than about the number — what matters is having built the judgment to move things forward without being told to.

• Independent operator: You run your own function. You do not need a queue handed to you, and you are…