Chief Operating Officer – Confidential Pharmaceutical Products Company

STAPLE Investments; North Carolina; On-site; USD 225,000 - 275,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

On-site in Charlotte, NC

Equity participation

Job summary

STAPLE Investments is seeking a Chief Operating Officer to lead the commercial franchise through closing and beyond, reporting to the Founder and CEO. The role is on-site in Charlotte, NC, with base salary around $250,000 plus equity participation.

You will inherit relationships with national wholesalers and oversee the planning, pricing, and operating discipline essential to scale the business. The candidate will build a durable organization, implement growth initiatives, and partner with a CFO

Qualifications

• Strategic and financial fluency; able to read P&L and unit economics
• Real commercial ownership; previously held key customer or channel relationships
• Hands-on builder; acts as player-coach in a small, fast-moving company
• 10–15+ years of experience; previous founder-led or sponsor-backed exposure
• Healthcare/pharma or distribution background; wholesalers experience a major advantage
• High trust, judgment, and ability to align founders and sponsor
• Long-horizon mindset with commitment to durable value creation

Responsibilities

• Own the commercial franchise; define channel strategy and customer coverage
• Inherit relationships with national wholesalers; supervise the Head of Business Development
• Lead growth plans; launch new products and open new channels
• Institutionalize product selection and pricing discipline
• Own the operating plan and P&L; collaborate with CFO on numbers and forecast
• Build systems, processes, and team to scale from a founder-led business
• Bridge founders, team, and STAPLE; ensure alignment and board-level reporting

Skills

Strategic fluency

Commercial ownership

Hands-on builder

10-15 years experience

Healthcare/pharma sector

High trust & judgment

Long-horizon mindset

Job description

STAPLE Investments is hiring a Chief Operating Officer for a company we expect to acquire. The business sells pharmaceutical and over-the-counter products through the national pharmaceutical wholesalers. It is founder-built, highly profitable, debt-free, and growing, and it has reached its current size without a dedicated salesperson. The founder who leads operations, pricing, and sourcing is staying for the ownership period and beyond. The founder who built the commercial side is moving to an advisory role at closing. This role takes the commercial franchise forward and builds the planning, financial discipline, and organization the company needs for its next chapter.

You will be hired by STAPLE and placed as Chief Operating Officer when the acquisition closes, reporting to the Founder and CEO. A Chief Financial Officer and a Head of Business Development are being recruited in parallel; the Head of Business Development will report to you. Placement is contingent on closing, and we will be direct with you about timing and risk throughout. Company identity, financials, and the full mandate are shared with qualified candidates under NDA.

The Opportunity

• This is a build-and-scale seat at a company that has never had one. The founders ran the business with fewer than ten people and no management layer, and it worked: the company's economics are far better than its industry's. The job is to add what a larger company needs without breaking what made the small one work.
• Own the commercial franchise. Channel strategy, contract terms, and customer coverage have been carried personally by a founder; at closing they become yours. You inherit the relationships with the national wholesalers at the top and are accountable for the company's standing at every level of those accounts, with a Head of Business Development executing under you.
• Carry the growth plan. Build the sales effort the company has never had. Launch new products from the pipeline and open the channels the company has identified but never worked: adjacent product categories, federal and VA, direct institutional accounts, direct-to-consumer. You decide which ones matter, in what order, and defend that plan to the board.
• Institutionalize product selection and pricing. The company's advantage is a founder's discipline about which products to carry and what to charge. Learn it, apply it, and write it down so that it survives any single person. It is the hardest part of the job to delegate, and the part most likely to decay if no one owns it.
• Own the operating plan and the P&L it produces. The incoming CFO owns the numbers: the close, the forecast, and the reporting. You own the plan behind them, the margin, and the working-capital decisions, and you answer for the result. The founders have run the business on instinct and a clean balance sheet. The board will run it on a plan you own.
• Build the company. The systems, processes, and people the business needs to scale from a founder shop. Evaluate and integrate add-on acquisitions when they make sense, and say so when they don't.
• Be the bridge. You are the connective tissue between the founders, the team, and STAPLE, including board-level reporting. When the founder and the sponsor see something differently, you are the person in the room who understands both.

Who We Are Looking For

• Strategic and financial fluency. You read a P&L and unit economics natively, can build a plan and allocate against it, and can tell a growth vector worth pursuing from one that only looks like it.
• Real commercial ownership. You have personally held key customer or channel relationships and carried a growth number. This is not a back‑office operating role; the commercial franchise is the job.
• A hands‑on builder. Player‑coach in a small, fast‑moving company. You do the work, then hire the person who does it next, then write down how.
• Roughly 10 to 15+ years of experience, including time at companies of comparable scale where the decisions were yours. Experience in a founder‑led or sponsor‑backed company is valued.
• Sector background in healthcare, pharmaceutical, consumer products, regulated products, or distribution. Experience selling through the national pharmaceutical wholesalers is a major advantage; fluency in how gross price becomes net price through their contracts is better still.
• High trust and judgment. You will succeed one founder and work beside another who is staying. The seat requires someone who complements a founder‑CEO rather than competing with him, and who earns the confidence of a small team that has never had a boss other than the people who built the company.
• A long horizon. We underwrite this company for a very long hold, and the equity in this role is structured for that. We want someone who finds a long hold more attractive than a quick exit.

Structure and Compensation

Employed by STAPLE Investments through closing; placed as Chief Operating Officer at close, reporting to the Founder and CEO, with the Head of Business Development reporting to you. On‑site in Charlotte, NC. Base salary of approximately $250,000 plus equity participation in the company. Compensation terms and the contingency are set out in the offer.

About STAPLE Investments

St. Thomas Aquinas Private Long‑term Equity acquires high‑quality Christian‑owned businesses and holds them for the long run. Our mission is to preserve Intentional Christian Ownership: to compound investor capital and expand Christian economic authority by owning great companies with patience, financial rigor, and deep operating experience. We do not buy companies to flip them. We partner with founders who care what happens to their business and their people after the transaction, and we build for durability rather than for an exit date.

That posture shapes how we hire. We look for people who want to build something that lasts, who treat a founder's customers and employees as their own, and who would rather be measured over years than quarters.

STAPLE Investments is an equal opportunity employer. Candidates are considered without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.