Chief Operating Officer

Role: Chief Operating Officer / Operating Partner
Industry: Consumer Distribution Company
Salary: $185,000 - $220,000/annually

Location: New York City (Hybrid) + Domestic Travel (~50%)

About the role: Our client, a private-equity-backed distribution company, is seeking a senior operating leader to serve as the connective tissue between finance, operations, and the commercial business. This role is designed for a deeply analytical, systems-oriented executive who thrives on helping others make better decisions-and who takes satisfaction in building structure where intuition has historically ruled.
This role will own the critical operating work flows: validating forecasts, interrogating cash flow assumptions, running business reviews, and coaching division leaders on margins and resource allocation, while ensuring the engine of the business runs with discipline and clarity.
This is not a functional silo role. It is a broad, high-trust leadership position for someone who can diagnose problems, design durable solutions, and elevate how the organization thinks and operates.

Responsibilities:

• Teaching leaders how to understand their numbers and make better decisions themselves.
• Partner with division leaders directly-walking through their P&Ls, connecting daily decisions to financial outcomes, and building the muscle to ask better questions over time.
• Running or co-running quarterly business reviews with division leaders
• Pressure-testing budgets and reforecasts before they reach executive leadership
• Developing simple, repeatable analytical frameworks that leaders can actually use
• Diagnosing root causes when performance breaks (systems, people, or process) and building durable fixes
• Owns HR and regulatory compliance-end to end
• Designing and leading a scalable compliance function across multiple entities
• Owning relationships with state liquor authorities and managing brand registrations across ~30 states and multiple importers
• Overseeing HR compliance across states and legal entities, including hiring and managing an experienced HR leader
• Building systems and processes that reduce risk and last-minute fire drills
• Building governance frameworks for purchasing and pricing that guide better decisions (not approval bottlenecks)
• Partnering with division leaders to understand margin implications of buying behavior
• Connecting purchasing decisions to inventory, working capital, and cash flow
• Improving decision quality by fixing inputs and assumptions, not just managing outcomes
• Supporting sale processes, including QoE prep, management presentations, and data rooms
• Attending quarterly board meetings and ensuring the operating narrative matches the numbers
• Supporting acquisition diligence and post-close integration when opportunities arise
  

Requirements:

• Senior operating leader (COO, COS, or similar) with experience spanning finance, operations, and analytics
• Strong systems thinker who turns ambiguity into structure
• Trusted partner to commercial leaders; comfortable teaching, questioning, and coaching
• Investor?literate; understands board dynamics and accountability
• Experience in consumer, distribution, or inventory?intensive businesses strongly preferred
• Wine or alcohol experience helpful, but not required
• Ability to travel domestically ~50% of the time or as needed
  

Equal Opportunity Notice

Highspring LLC (d/b/a Vaco by Highspring) and its parents, affiliates, and subsidiaries ("we," "our," or "Vaco by Highspring") are committed to the full inclusion of all qualified individuals and does not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race (including but not limited to traits historically associated with race such as hair texture and hair style), color, sex (includes pregnancy or related conditions), religion or creed, national origin, citizenship, age, disability, status as a veteran, union membership, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, political affiliation, or any other protected characteristics as required by applicable law. The company is also committed to ensuring that persons who need them are provided with reasonable accommodations; if an accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, please contact [email protected] .

Vaco by Highspring also wants all applicants to know their rights that workplace discrimination is illegal.

Representation Notice

By submitting to this position, you agree that you will be giving Vaco by Highspring the exclusive right to present your as a candidate for the foregoing employment opportunity. Additionally, you agree to be included in our talent pool for future hiring for similarly qualified positions. You further agree that you have represented information about yourself accurately and have not affirmatively misrepresented your qualifications. Lastly, you agree to maintain as confidential, to the fullest extent permitted by law, any information you learn from Vaco by Highspring about the position and you will limit disclosure of information about the position only to the extent necessary to perform any obligations in furtherance of your application. In exchange, Vaco by Highspring agrees to exercise reasonable efforts to represent you through all solicitation, job screening and resume dispersal.

For residents of Ontario, Canada only: to the extent the position for employment is not with Highspring or not otherwise noted as vacant above, candidate should be informed that this role is to replace a presently employed person at Vaco by Highspring's client.

Privacy Notice

Vaco by Highspring respects your privacy and are committed to providing transparent notice of our policies.

• California residents may access Vaco by Highspring HR Notice at Collection for California Applicants and Employees here.


• Virginia residents may access our state specific policies here.


• Residents of all other states may access our policies here.


• Canadian residents may access our policies in English here and in French here.


• Residents of countries governed by GDPR and UK GDPR may access our policies here.

Additionally, submissions to this position are subject to the use of AI to perform preliminary candidate screenings, focused on ensuring minimum job requirements noted in the position are satisfied. More details about Vaco by Highspring's use of AI can be found here (https://www.highspring.com/ai-use-notices/). Further assessment of candidates beyond this initial phase will be conducted by recruiters and hiring managers. Vaco by Highspring does not know and cannot opine on if its client's use of AI products in hiring.

Pay Transparency Notice

Determining compensation for this role (and others) at Vaco by Highspring depends upon a wide array of factors including but not limited to:

· the individual's skill sets, experience and training;

· licensure and certification requirements;

· office location and other geographic considerations; and

· other business and organizational needs.

With that said, as required by local law, Vaco by Highspring believes that the following salary range referenced above reasonably estimates the base compensation for an individual hired into this position in geographies that require salary range disclosure. The individual may also be eligible for discretionary bonuses and/or participation in medical, dental, and vision benefits as well as the company's retirement plan (or similar retirement benefits).