Director of Business Operations

Inspired is a market leading, technology-enabled provider of energy and sustainability solutions in the UK - supporting businesses to transition to net zero carbon and manage their response to climate change.

Established in 2000, we became the first publicly quoted advisor following a successful AIM debut in 2011. We are now the UK’s number one destination for businesses seeking expert insight and advisory services to help them manage their energy costs, reduce their carbon emissions and prove their net zero carbon and ESG strategies to their investors and customers.

We are looking for a Director of Business Operation to join our successful Optimisation Team. This is a home based role with occasional travel to offices required.

The Director of Business Operations is responsible for translating Inspired Optimisation’s strategy, budget and commercial pipeline into a credible and executable operating plan. The role will provide forward visibility of revenue, margin, capacity and operational performance, while leading the transformation projects and change-management activity required to build a scalable business.

Working closely with the Managing Director, CFO, Finance Business Partner and functional directors, the role will coordinate performance across Sales, Engineering, Project Delivery, Customer Success and Asset Management and O&M. Project Delivery, Design, QA and CDM will remain within the Director of Engineering function.

• Principal responsibilities:
  Business planning and performance
• Lead the integrated business-planning process for Inspired Optimisation.
• Connect pipeline, secured orders, project forecasts, resource capacity, revenue, margin and cash requirements.
• Own the consolidated operational forecast and business-performance scorecard.
• Identify performance gaps and ensure accountable directors implement recovery plans.
• Improve forecast accuracy, order-book conversion and operational visibility.
• Revenue and margin performance
• Coordinate delivery of the business unit’s revenue, contribution EBITDA and operational targets.
• Establish visibility between margin sold, margin mobilised, margin forecast and margin delivered.
• Challenge operational assumptions and emerging project or portfolio underperformance.
• Transformation and change management
• Own and prioritise the Inspired Optimisation transformation roadmap.
• Lead cross-functional programmes covering systems, processes, data, organisational design and performance improvement.
• Establish clear programme governance, milestones, benefits and ownership.
• Ensure changes are communicated, adopted and embedded into business-as-usual operations.
• Retire legacy processes and reduce reliance on manual reporting and senior-management intervention.
• Operating model and governance
• Develop the end-to-end operating model from opportunity qualification through delivery and ongoing service.
• Clarify process ownership, decision rights, stage gates and cross-functional handovers.
• Establish an effective monthly and quarterly management cadence.
• Improve management information, data quality and CRM adoption.
• Maintain an integrated view of operational risks and dependencies.
• Capacity and resource planning
• Maintain forward visibility of engineering, Project Delivery, supply-chain and service capacity.
• Identify where demand exceeds available capability.
• Coordinate recruitment, subcontracting, prioritisation and investment decisions.
• Ensure commercial and financial forecasts reflect realistic delivery capacity.
• Read and comply with the company Health & Safety Policy; taking reasonable care for the Health & Safety of themselves and others; co-operate with managers and other employees in fulfilling our objectives and statutory duties.
• Key role boundaries The Director of Business Operations will not directly own:
  
  Sales Design Project  DeliveryQACDMTechnical assurance
  
  Financial accounting or statutory control.
• The role will coordinate, challenge and integrate these functions to ensure the overall business plan is executable and delivered.
• Key measures of success:
  
  Revenue and contribution EBITDA against plan.
  
  Forecast accuracy.
  
  Project and portfolio margin…