Growth Agency COO & Client Lead

Future Digital; Austin (TX); Hybrid; USD 100,000 - 150,000; Part time

Job summary

Future Digital, based in Austin, Texas, is seeking a fractional COO to enhance our operational systems while leading client accounts. This role combines strategic oversight and hands-on leadership, ensuring delivery across lifecycle and paid media.

The ideal candidate will have a background in lifecycle and paid media management, strong project management skills, and experience in integrating AI into business operations. Join us to help shape the future of health startups.

Qualifications

• Experience in managing lifecycle retention programs for consumer brands.
• Strong background in paid media strategy and execution.
• Proven project management skills and client relationship management.

Responsibilities

• Build and run operational systems for the agency.
• Lead client accounts and ensure project delivery.
• Integrate AI into operations and client work effectively.

Skills

Lifecycle/retention programs

Paid media strategy

Project management

Client relationship management

AI integration

Job description

We're a growth marketing partner for the next generation of category-defining women and family health startups. We run two disciplines deep — paid media and lifecycle/retention — as an embedded extension of our clients' teams, with the AI fluency to move faster and keeping client-to-strategist ratios intentionally low.

We've built the foundation — a strong client base, established team, a clear way of working. Now we're hiring the person who makes it run: the systems behind hiring and onboarding, client delivery, and how AI gets woven into all of it.

THE ROLE

We're hiring a fractional COO who also leads client accounts — a right hand partner who owns how Future Digital runs, and personally carries a focused book of accounts across lifecycle and paid media while doing it.

One half is building and running the company: the systems, the financial health, the hiring and onboarding, and the delivery rhythm.

The other half is hands‑on client leadership — you're the lead on a group of accounts, flexing across lifecycle and paid media as the book requires, directing the team on execution and owning performance. It suits someone energized by both the building and the craft, who wants real ownership. Builder and operator first. Hands‑on account lead alongside it.

WHAT YOU'LL OWN

• The operating engine of the agency. Capacity planning, client onboarding, reporting cadences, project/PM systems, and the operating rhythm that lets a senior team deliver consistently across both media and lifecycle. You design and run the systems; EA support carries the administrative execution underneath them.
• Building and growing the team. You co‑own how we hire, onboard, and grow our people — and you help shape a culture where heart and real human connection don't get lost as we scale.
• A hands‑on client book. You're the lead on a focused set of accounts — lifecycle (Klaviyo) as your home base, and paid media accounts as the business needs — owning the strategy, on the calls, accountable for outcomes, with strategists and contractors supporting execution under you. This is real client work, not oversight from a distance.
• Delivery that ships and lands. You keep the work on track — scope, timelines, quality, and the people executing — so clients feel taken care of. This is project‑management muscle as much as marketing muscle, and you build the delivery system so it holds as the book grows.
• Systems that make future revenue repeatable. You strengthen the core functions of the business — ops, hiring, finance, delivery, and the systems behind sales and support — and build the operating systems that make our next stage of revenue predictable rather than improvised.
• AI woven into the work. You actively integrate AI into both operations and client work — reporting, QA, segmentation, content drafting, workflow automation — as the leverage that lets a lean senior team punch far above its size. You help grow the agency's AI muscle across the board, from internal workflows to newer growth surfaces, and you set the standard for what "AI‑enabled, human‑led" looks like day to day.

YOU ARE

• Deep in lifecycle, credible in paid, ops‑minded throughout. You've run either lifecycle/retention programs for consumer brands hands‑on — DTC, health, wellness, or family brands and/or have led paid media accounts: setting strategy, running the client relationship, directing specialists, and judging the quality of the work — even if you're not the one in the platform day to day. You've built or significantly improved operating systems — onboarding, capacity planning, reporting, QBRs. That combination is non‑negotiable.
• An owner, not an operator‑within‑systems. You take real ownership of how a business runs — refining, tightening, and improving rather than just executing inside what someone else built. We have a foundation; you make it better and keep it running.
• Ops‑first by temperament. You guard systems time. Client chaos is something you manage and contain, not something you let quietly consume your week.
• A trusted client lead and a strong project manager. Clients believe their account is genuinely handled when it's yours — whether the engagement is lifecycle, paid, or both. You keep delivery on track — scope, timelines, quality, and the people doing the work — without things slipping through the cracks. You're hands‑on with the strategy and direct the team on the execution.
• Genuinely good with people. Founders and marketing leads trust you. You communicate clearly, hold relationships steady when things get bumpy, and you build the kind of team culture where good people want to stay.
• An active AI integrator. You don't just "use AI" — you've built it into how you actually work, with specific examples of tools and workflows where it saved real time or raised quality, and a clear‑eyed view of where it doesn't help. You treat AI as leverage, not novelty.
• Looking for a home. You want depth and longevity with a high‑quality team — not a title to collect on the way to somewhere else.
• Comfortable with a fractional engagement to start. This begins fractional, with room to grow into full‑time for the right fit.

Agency or growth‑startup operations experience is a strong plus.