Chief Operating Officer

About the role

About Aardvark Studios Aardvark Studios is an independent experiential marketing company located just outside Philadelphia. Since 2007, we've helped agencies and brands bring ambitious ideas to life through live experiences, mobile tours and custom-built environments. We design them. We engineer and fabricate them. We integrate technology into them. We staff, operate and maintain them. Our capabilities include creative design, design engineering, custom fabrication, technology integration, program management, nationwide tour operations, field execution, maintenance, warehousing and fleet operations. Aardvark has a talented team, an incredible facility, great clients, serious capabilities and more momentum than at any point in our history. We are expanding our shop, our tour operations and our fleet. We are doing bigger jobs, more jobs and some of the best work we have ever produced. We are now looking for an exceptional Chief Operating Officer to help lead the next stage of our growth. The Opportunity The COO will lead everything that happens after the sale. This includes: program management, production and fabrication, tour operations, field execution, manage our facilities, information technology, and operational systems, processes and accountability. The COO will work directly with the founder and leadership team, stay close to the work and have meaningful authority to make decisions, develop people, improve systems, restructure departments and drive results. The opportunity is to help scale a serious independent company without stripping away the creativity, speed, energy and customer focus that made it successful. Who We Are Looking For This is not a first-time COO role. We are looking for a proven operating leader who has already done this successfully. You have led a complex operation. You have built and developed teams, installed operating systems, improved performance and produced measurable results that you can clearly demonstrate. You do not need to come directly from the experiential marketing world, but it helps. You do need to understand complex, project-based work involving job costing, labor planning and productivity, production schedules, quality and attention to detail, capacity and resource planning, demanding clients, multiple projects moving simultaneously, deadlines that do not move, and execution in both controlled and unpredictable environments. You understand that good operations are not created through meetings, slogans or additional layers of management. They are created through clear expectations, strong people, useful information, disciplined follow-through and consistent accountability. The Founder and COO Partnership Aardvark was built by a visionary founder who moves quickly, sees opportunities and generates ideas. The COO must be a true integrator. You know how to take a vision, turn it into a practical plan, align people around it and drive it through execution. You bring focus, discipline and accountability without slowing down the creativity and speed that make Aardvark special. You respect what has already been built while bringing your own informed point of view. You are confident enough to lead and humble enough to listen. You can teach the founder, learn from him and build a relationship based on trust, honesty and mutual respect. The goal is not to create another founder. The goal is to create a strong partnership between a visionary and an integrator whose strengths complement one another. What You Will Be Expected to Accomplish Build a stronger team. Develop existing leaders, recruit exceptional talent where needed and establish clear ownership throughout the organization. Create a team that solves problems, makes decisions and delivers results without unnecessary dependence on the founder or COO. Put the right people in the right seats. Evaluate the organization honestly and thoughtfully. Clarify roles, responsibilities, authority and measurable expectations. Make difficult personnel decisions when necessary while developing people who have the ability and desire to grow. Unify production and tour operations. Create one coordinated operating organization across program management, fabrication, production, tour operations and field execution. Improve communication, handoffs, resource planning and accountability from project kickoff through completion. Install a practical operating system. Implement or strengthen a proven operating framework such as EOS, Lean or another system that works. We do not want process for the sake of process. We want clear priorities, useful meetings, visible commitments, fast issue resolution and consistent follow-through. Build useful scoreboards and dashboards. Give the team timely information that helps them make better decisions while there's still time to affect the outcome. Key information should include labor performance, job profitability, project status, capacity, quality, deadlines and operational risks. Improve project executio

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