Chief Operating Officer (COO)
Findresource
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Job summary
Findresource is seeking a seasoned Chief Operating Officer to lead growth, operational strengthening and retail transformation across its sweets, restaurant and Indian food retail portfolio in Chennai.
The ideal candidate will bring proven multi-unit leadership in QSR/food retail, strong commercial acumen and ability to build scalable systems. This is a hands-on leadership role reporting to promoters/MD.
Qualifications
- 15+ years of overall experience with leadership in sweets, restaurant, QSR or multi-unit food brands.
- Proven experience managing multiple outlets / locations.
- Track record of business growth and retail operations improvement.
- Experience in promoter-led or professional growing food businesses.
Responsibilities
- Develop and execute operational strategy to support growth and outlet expansion.
- Drive revenue, profitability and customer experience across all outlets.
- Establish scalable operating models and KPIs for future expansion.
- Coordinate production, kitchen, quality, procurement and retail ops for consistency.
- Lead, coach and develop leadership teams across units.
- Implement SOPs, controls and dashboards for visibility and decision-making.
- Oversee governance, compliance, food safety and cost management.
- Build systems for monitoring performance and driving improvements.
- Collaborate with promoters to translate vision into execution.
Skills
Education
Job description
We are looking for a seasoned Chief Operating Officer (COO) to lead the next phase of business growth, operational strengthening and retail transformation.
Location: Chennai, Tamil Nadu
Industry: Sweets, Restaurants, Chaat & Snacks | Indian Food Retail
Reporting To: Promoters / Managing Director
A well-established food and retail business serving a wide range of North Indian cuisine, chaat, snacks, traditional Indian sweets and restaurant offerings.
This is a hands-on leadership role requiring strong commercial acumen, operational discipline and the ability to work closely with the Promoters to translate the business vision into measurable execution.
- Develop and execute the operational strategy to support business growth, outlet expansion and revenue enhancement.
- Identify opportunities to improve sales, customer footfall, average ticket size, repeat business and market penetration.
- Support the Promoters in evaluating new locations, formats, products and business opportunities.
- Establish scalable operating models for future expansion.
- Provide overall leadership to all retail outlets, restaurants, sweets and food-service operations.
- Drive consistency in customer experience, service standards, product availability, presentation and outlet discipline.
- Establish clear outlet-wise targets, KRAs, KPIs and review mechanisms.
- Strengthen daily operating systems covering opening/closing, cash handling, inventory, hygiene, service and customer management.
- Ensure effective coordination between outlets and central functions.
- Own the overall operational performance and profitability of the business.
- Drive outlet-wise revenue and contribution improvement.
- Monitor key commercial metrics including:
- Sales and growth
- Gross margins
- Food cost
- Wastage
- Labour cost
- Inventory turnover
- Average bill value
- Outlet profitability
- Identify leakages and implement corrective measures to improve margins and operational efficiency.
- Ensure strong coordination between production, kitchen, quality, purchase, supply chain and retail operations.
- Improve product planning, availability and production-to-sales alignment.
- Establish controls for freshness, quality, wastage and product consistency.
- Work with the culinary and production teams on menu/product innovation and commercial viability.
- Ensure consistent standards across sweets, chaat, snacks and restaurant offerings.
- Build a strong customer-centric culture across the organisation.
- Establish and monitor service standards for restaurants and retail outlets.
- Create mechanisms for capturing and acting upon customer feedback, online reviews and outlet-level complaints.
- Drive improvement in customer satisfaction, repeat visits and brand experience.
- Ensure consistent brand presentation across locations.
- Build a strong second line of leadership across operations.
- Lead, coach and develop Unit Managers, Restaurant Managers, Outlet Managers and functional heads.
- Establish clear accountability, performance expectations and review systems.
- Improve manpower productivity, retention and succession readiness.
- Create a performance-driven yet people-oriented operating culture.
- Strengthen SOPs and operating systems across the organisation.
- Standardise processes for:
- Outlet operations
- Inventory management
- Procurement
- Production planning
- Quality & hygiene
- Cash management
- Customer service
- Manpower deployment
- Reporting & MIS
- Introduce appropriate technology and dashboards to improve visibility and decision-making.
- Build a culture of data-driven operational reviews and accountability.
- Work closely with Purchase, Production and SCM teams to ensure availability at optimum cost.
- Improve vendor management, procurement discipline and inventory planning.
- Reduce stock-outs, excess inventory, wastage and avoidable operational costs.
- Strengthen coordination between central production and retail outlets.
- Establish a structured daily, weekly and monthly operating review mechanism.
- Present business performance, challenges, opportunities and action plans to the Promoters.
- Ensure timely implementation of agreed business priorities.
- Maintain strong control over operational compliance, food safety, hygiene and statutory requirements.
- 15+ years of overall experience, preferably with significant leadership experience in:
- Sweets & Mithai chains
- Restaurant chains
- QSR / food retail
- Indian food brands
- Multi-unit F&B businesses
- Should have proven experience managing multiple outlets / locations.
- Candidates must demonstrate a track record of business growth and retail operations improvement, rather than only functional restaurant management experience.
- Experience in a promoter-led, family-managed or professionally managed growing food business will be valuable.
- Successful retail/outlet expansion
- Revenue and profitability growth
- Improvement in outlet productivity
- Strong cost and wastage control
- Development of operating systems and SOPs
- Building and managing strong operational teams
- Improvement in customer experience
- Successful implementation of operational transformation
- Ability to create scalable systems for future growth
Graduate / Postgraduate qualification in Business Management, Hospitality, Food Service, Retail Management or a related discipline.
An MBA / PGDM or equivalent management qualification will be an advantage.
The ideal candidate is not simply an experienced restaurant manager.
We are looking for a business leader who has already demonstrated the ability to grow and professionalise a multi-unit sweets, restaurant or food-retail business and can now take ownership of the next stage of growth.
Candidates with a strong track record of scaling outlets, improving profitability, building systems and developing high-performing teams will be preferred.
Compensation: Commensurate with experience, leadership capability and demonstrated business impact.
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