Strategy & Operations Manager

Kota; United Kingdom; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

A forward-thinking benefits platform is seeking a Strategy hire to streamline business operations and enhance customer experience. This individual will lead strategic projects and manage day-to-day initiatives while working closely with various teams. Candidates should have over 5 years of experience in high-paced startups or consulting, along with strong analytical skills and a customer-first mindset. This role offers significant exposure to senior leadership and contributes to the company's geographic expansion.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in fast-growing startups or top-tier consulting firms.
• Outstanding analytical skills across tools, ideally with SQL experience.
• Ability to learn and operate across various complex topics.

Responsibilities

• Identify and lead business-critical projects to accelerate growth.
• Manage day-to-day initiatives to improve team performance.
• Build competitive intelligence to enhance market understanding.

Skills

Analytical skills

SQL

Customer-first mindset

Clear communication

Ability to switch contexts

Bias for action

Comfort with ambiguity

Education

Experience in fast-growing startups or consulting firms

Job description

About Kota

Kota is reimagining insurance and retirement benefits for the modern workforce. Through our two flagship products—Kota Platform, the first fully integrated benefits platform, and Kota Embed, our embedded insurance solution—we're making benefits more accessible, valued, and global.

Today, we power benefits for tens of thousands of employees at Europe's most forward-thinking companies, including Carwow, Tines, Zoe, and Remote. Founded in 2022, we've raised more than €20M from leading investors like EQT Ventures, Eurazeo, Northzone, and Frontline, along with founders and executives from Workday, Remote, Personio, OpenAI, and more.

The Role

We are looking to make our first Strategy hire, playing a crucial role as we scale the business in 2026. Reporting to the COO, this person will take on a wide range of responsibilities to support many different areas of Kota.

Success in this role would lead to this person becoming a trusted problem solver in the company with broad knowledge of the business and its operations. Desired outcomes would see the continued development of a world‑class customer experience and co‑ordination of key elements of our geographic expansion.

This individual should be a generalist and an excellent problem solver, enjoying the ambiguity that is inherent in startup life. The role represents an opportunity to build, supported by experienced founders and a stellar executive team, leading to senior leadership exposure and accelerated learning.

What We're Looking For

• Drive strategic projects. Identify and lead business‑critical projects that will accelerate business growth and improve efficiency, particularly in areas such as customer experience and expansion

• Lead day‑to‑day initiatives to uplift the performance of our functional teams, taking ownership for element of our BAU setup

• Own competitive intelligence. Build our market understanding and contribute to the development of industry‑leading solutions that solve pain points experienced by customers.

• Establish data foundations. Contribute to a data‑centric culture by owning projects that drive our information capabilities, enabling everyone to take a data‑driven approach to problem‑solving.

• Prepare cross‑functional updates. Draft and update materials informing stakeholders about project progress, risks, and opportunities.

• Handle ad‑hoc requests relating to all functional areas of the business, including deep dives or issue analysis and resolution

What We're Looking For

• 5+ years of experience in fast‑growing startups or top‑tier consulting firms or equivalent

• Outstanding analytical skills across tools, with SQL experience preferred

• Ability to switch contexts. We are looking for a generalist who can quickly learn and operate across various, complex topics at any one time

• Bias for action. You prefer to drive things to completion and achieve results

• Customer‑first mindset. Our customers are at the heart of what we do and everything we build contributes to industry‑leading outcomes for them

• Clear communication. Excellent written and verbal skills. You can communicate ideas clearly and engage stakeholders at all levels

• Comfort with ambiguity. You thrive when there's no playbook. You'd rather build the thing than inherit the thing.

Our Values

• Have Integrity. We care deeply about our why and it won’t jeopardise our how.

• Care Deeply. Our products are our story, we look at the details, go the extra mile to delight customers.

• Own Your Ship. Ask why, do the work, get the data, solve the problem, be an owner.

• Raise the Bar. We continuously look to push past good enough. Expect more, move faster, and never stop raising your and the team’s standards.

• Play to Win. We exist because we decided to say no to the norm – now we do this everyday.