Executive Vice President Operations

Foresight; Grand Rapids (MI); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Foresight is seeking an Executive Vice President of Operations to lead the teams that design, build, and deliver engagements across software, managed services, and advisory offerings. This hands-on leader will focus on customer experience, scalable operations, and a culture of accountability.

The EVP Ops reports to the President and will develop leaders, optimize delivery, and align work to the company’s mission and strategic goals across a hybrid, US-based workspace.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of progressive operating experience, with 3+ years in a senior ops leadership role.
• Experience in professional services, managed services, SaaS, or tech-enabled services.
• Experience with inorganic growth and integrations.
• Track record in scaling operational infrastructure and KPI frameworks.
• Strong financial and analytical acumen with P&L awareness.

Responsibilities

• Lead teams delivering customer engagements across software, managed services, and advisory offerings.
• Build trust, manage healthy conflict, drive clarity and accountability.
• Oversee delivery operations, KPIs, and client experience.
• Partner with EVP Finance on budgeting and forecasting.

Skills

Leadership

Operations management

Strategic thinking

Communication

Financial analysis

P&L awareness

Job description

Foresight exists to transform business and empower change.

Our vision is to be the leader in Energy, EHS, and Sustainability solutions for manufacturing organizations throughout North America.

Our technology enabled trusted-advisor service model translates how complex market and regulatory dynamics impact our clients, empowering them to act in the present and plan for the future.

We design and deliver advisory and technical services, as well as proprietary software products focused on helping our industrial clients stay compliant, save money, and unlock growth.

We are committed to excellence in customer service and to being a best-in-class workplace.

To be successful at Foresight, you will need to:

• Find personal inspiration in our Purpose and Mission.
• Adopt and strive to embody our Core Values.
• Be a goal-oriented, self-starter.
• Have an awareness of your personal strengths and weaknesses.
• Enjoy working on a team and take pride in being a great teammate.

Open Position

Executive Vice President - Operations

Our Leadership Philosophy

We seek to create an environment where talented individuals can become the best versions of themselves while contributing to our company purpose, mission and vision.

We aim to develop healthy, effective teams filled with healthy, effective individuals who are utilizing their strengths and experiencing innate joy in their work.

By intentionally connecting every individual contributor’s work to the larger purpose, mission, vision, and strategy of the company, we seek to create the conditions in which intrinsic motivation is sparked and achieved by all our staff.

To achieve these ends, our operating philosophy is rooted in our five core values and designed to build a foundation of trust that makes organizational vulnerability, honest conflict, shared commitment, mutual accountability, and a focus on collective results possible.

Position Overview

As a member of the Executive Leadership Team, the Executive Vice President Operations (EVP Ops) role will serve Foresight by leading our teams that design, build, and deliver customer engagements across our suite of software, managed service, and advisory service offerings.

This is a hands-on, builder role who is obsessed with customer experience.

Foresight is a growing, dynamic company; thus we seek an operational leader that loves building teams, debates openly, welcomes being challenged and receiving feedback, commits fully, facilitates a culture of accountability, and stays focused on shared results.

This role reports directly to the President and suits a curious, emotionally intelligent, self-aware operator who embodies a growth mindset, and relishes at the prospect of developing and empowering leaders for a growing organization.

Key Responsibilities

Build Trust

• Model vulnerability-based leadership. Admit mistakes, ask for help, and name weaknesses as the default behavior, not the exception.
• Create structured, recurring opportunities for direct reports and their downstream teams to build genuine trust in each other.
• Build onboarding and team norms where surfacing problems early is celebrated, not penalized.

Master Healthy Conflict

• Create and facilitate decision making processes where all stakeholders feel empowered to weigh in and participate so that when decisions are made, the team feels heard and they know why the decision was made.
• Encourage and facilitate unfiltered debate among teammates on the tradeoffs Foresight faces daily: customer requests vs. delivery capacity, product roadmap vs. client commitments, hiring pace vs. margin.
• Design the operating cadence to surface and resolve cross-functional tension amongst production, technology, innovation, and sales.
• Coach leaders and downstream staff to challenge each other's assumptions productively. Creating an environment where people believe the best in each other and egos are set aside in service of getting decisions right.

Drive Clarity & Commitment

• Convert debate into clear, documented decisions and operating plans that distinctly connects the decisions to Foresight’s purpose, vision, values, mission, and strategy.
• Own the operating rhythm that turns strategic intent into committed, resourced execution across service design, delivery, customer experience, and technology.

Create a Culture of Accountability

• Establish clear ownership for each operational objective and hold the team accountable to the things they commit to and can control.
• Build a peer-accountability culture in which teammates communicate directly with each other about positive and negative issues.

Focus on Collective Results

• Keep the operations teams focused on company-wide outcomes over individual department or division outcomes
• Own the scoreboard: build and maintain the KPI dashboard and OKR process that makes collective results visible.
• Ensure resourcing, prioritization, and hiring decisions are made in service of company values, vision, strategy, and results.

Scope of Role

Operational Scaling

• Design and implement the scalable processes, systems, and organizational structure needed to grow both organically and inorganically
• Build and run regular operating rhythms (weekly/monthly business reviews, quarterly planning, OKRs) that keep the client delivery, innovation and technology teams aligned and accountable.
• Establish and track measures of productivity and service profitability to ultimately prioritize and execute improvements.
• Identify operational bottlenecks proactively and lead cross-functional problem-solving to resolve them before they constrain growth.
• Lead continuous improvement across delivery workflows, reducing manual effort and rework to increase team capacity and support growth while maintaining service quality.

Service Delivery & Client Experience

• Oversee delivery operations for all customer engagements. Driving excellence in customer experience, and product quality, while achieving healthy team utilization and financial margin performance.
• Establish and continuously improve delivery methodology, playbooks, service design, development, and quality standards so outcomes are consistent as headcount grows.
• Partner with EVP Sales on developing collaborative scoping, client onboarding, customer experience design, and key account strategies.
• Support pricing, packaging, and contracting decisions with an operational lens on deliverability and margin.

Technology

• Oversee the Technology team by aligning the technology roadmap with client and delivery needs, ensuring the platform strategy supports and drives service delivery.
• Oversee the operational processes that connect our software platform to service delivery. Leading leaders who oversee implementation, onboarding, support, and platform adoption metrics.
• Work with the technology and practice teams to identify automation opportunities and drive workflow changes, training and adoption needed to realize measurable improvements in delivery performance.
• Champion the use of internal tools and automation to improve delivery efficiency and reduce reliance on manual work.

People & Culture

• Partner with Executive Leadership Team and the People & Culture Team on workforce planning, hiring pace, org design, and performance management as the team scales.
• Build hiring and promotion criteria that select for and reinforce our core values; vulnerability, enthusiasm, ownership, critical thinking, and competitive greatness.
• Support leadership development for leaders and managers as Foresight grows.

Financial & Business Operations

• Partner with the EVP Finance on budgeting, forecasting, and operational metrics that connect financial performance to delivery and platform performance.

Strategic Leadership

• Serve as a trusted thought partner to the President and Executive Leadership Team on company strategy, growth initiatives, and major operating decisions.
• Evaluate and lead execution of new initiatives, including new service lines, and M&A integration, as opportunities arise.

Preferred Experience

• 10+ years of progressive operating experience, including 3+ years in a senior operations leadership role (COO, VP Operations, General Manager, or similar).
• Direct experience in professional/consulting services, managed services, software as services, or a technology-enabled services businesses.
• Direct experience with inorganic growth and subsequent integrations.
• Track record of building or significantly scaling operational infrastructure (processes, systems, KPI frameworks)
• Strong financial and analytical acumen; comfortable owning P&L-adjacent metrics such as utilization, margin, and delivery cost.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, with experience presenting to executive leadership, boards, and/or all company audiences.

Compensation

Compensation includes a competitive base salary, an annual performance bonus tied to company goals, 401(k) with employer match, health insurance, and company sponsored EAP

Location

We have offices in Holland, MI, Grand Rapids, MI, and Zionsville, IN and provide a flexible hybrid work environment oriented around results and teamwork.

We are looking for U.S.-based candidates who can work during Eastern Time Zone hours. You must be available for meetings and collaboration during these hours and be authorized to work in the U.S. without sponsorship.