Head of Operations & Client Experience

Buttonwood Capital Management; Scottsdale (AZ); On-site; USD 150,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Buttonwood Capital Management, based in Scottsdale, is seeking a senior operating leader to own operations, client services, and technology across the firm. You will shape team structure, hiring, and accountability, driving a coordinated organization focused on service quality and growth.

The role emphasizes building scalable processes, leading strategic initiatives, and partnering with Compliance, IT, and investment teams to deliver integrated client experience and robust governance.

Qualifications

• Senior operations leader with 10+ years of progressive leadership in operations or business management.
• Experience in wealth management, RIAs, or broker-dealers is preferred but not required.
• Technical fluency across data, integrations, information security, and AI.

Responsibilities

• Lead Client Service and Operations teams, including staffing, design, and growth.
• Own technology strategy, data governance, and cybersecurity across platforms.
• Manage vendor relationships and external operating partnerships.

Skills

Leadership

Operations management

Strategy & planning

Data analytics

Cybersecurity awareness

AI governance

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

CRM systems

Planning software

Custodial platforms

Data governance tools

Job description

ABOUT BUTTONWOOD

Buttonwood Capital Management is a private wealth management firm in Scottsdale, Arizona, built on more than 25 years of experience advising entrepreneurs, executives, and multi-generational families. The firm delivers customized investment management, comprehensive financial planning, and strategic advice spanning tax, estate planning, asset protection, and business exit planning.

Operations, client service, and technology have been managed within the firm's leadership to this point. This role is new, and the person who takes it will build the function rather than inherit it.

POSITION SUMMARY

Buttonwood Capital Management is seeking a senior operating leader to join the firm's leadership and assume responsibility for operations and client services in support of the firm's future growth. This individual will lead the people in both departments, carrying full ownership of team structure, hiring, headcount, and accountability, along with the technology those teams rely on. The objective is a firm in which client service consistently meets the standard of care Buttonwood sets, operations runs cleanly, and the wealth management and investment teams are equipped with the people, process, and information they require, all of it functioning as one coordinated organization rather than a set of adjacent departments.

This is a leadership role in substance as well as in title. The individual will help direct the firm rather than execute decisions made elsewhere and will be counted on to identify what the business needs, bring recommendations forward, and support them with data, analysis, and evidence. The demands on operations change materially as a firm grows, and what works at one stage rarely carries to the next. This role is intended for someone who recognizes that difference and embraces the challenge it brings.

CORE RESPONSIBILITIES

• Leads the Client Service and Operations teams, including hiring, staffing levels, and role design, with authority to add supporting staff where the business case warrants.
• Leads process improvement firmwide, contributes fully to firm and team strategy, and executes against it.
• Leads the firm's technology strategy across platform selection, system integration, data integrity, and cybersecurity. This is central to the role, not adjacent to it.
• Manages firm business operations in tandem with leadership objectives, including technology, business administration, facilities, and vendor management.
• Leads the firm's external operating relationships across custodians, technology vendors, service providers, and professional partners.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Develops the team through one-on-ones, group meetings, performance reviews, and structured training on service philosophy, firm culture, and client experience standards.
• Manages staffing, workload, and conflict resolution, and builds career paths that reduce key-person dependency. Empowered to hire supporting staff as the firm scales.

Client Experience

• Leads the firm's client service philosophy and standard of care, standardizing onboarding, touchpoints, and communication so the experience is consistent firmwide as the firm grows.
• Monitors satisfaction, resolves escalated matters, and drives improvement.

Operations & Execution

• Executes intermediate- and long-term initiatives that advance the firm while resolving time-sensitive matters, without allowing either to displace the other.
• Evaluates operational processes and investments on an ROI basis, and coordinates with custodians and vendors on account opening, transfers, money movement, and quality assurance.

Technology, AI & Systems

• Leads the firm's technology stack, including CRM, portfolio accounting and performance reporting, planning software, custodial platforms, and document management, with attention to how these systems integrate and where the source of truth resides.
• Accountable for data integrity and governance, including reconciliation between custodial and portfolio accounting data, account structure, permissions, and audit trails.
• Brings informed judgment on AI and its practical application here: where it creates leverage, where it does not, and the guardrails required around client data, supervision, and recordkeeping. This landscape moves quickly and staying ahead of it is part of the job.
• Sets the standard for cybersecurity and information security, executing through IT and vendor partners. We are not looking for someone to build it personally, but for someone who understands what client PII is worth, asks the right questions, and recognizes an inadequate answer when they hear one.

Compliance & Risk Management

• Partners with the firm's Compliance Officer and outside counsel on policies, procedures, and monitoring across service, account, and operational workflows. For a candidate with the depth and interest, leading compliance is an option.
• Supports examinations and audits, maintains documentation standards, and builds business continuity plans that reduce key-person risk.

Strategic Leadership & Financial Oversight

• Serves as a third voice within the firm's leadership, disagreeing constructively and committing fully once decisions are made.
• Brings an entrepreneurial orientation, anticipating where growth will strain the current model and building ahead of it rather than reacting to it.
• Supports budgeting, expense management, vendor economics, and staffing investment, with a clear line between what the firm spends and what it earns back.

QUALIFICATIONS

• 10+ years of progressive operations or business management leadership, including direct management of a team.
• Experience inside a wealth management firm, RIA, or broker‑dealer is preferred but not required. We are equally open to a strong operating leader from banking or another industry whose skills carry over. The model and the execution matter more than the résumé, and we will take curiosity and drive over industry tenure.
• A demonstrable record of what has been built, including systems implemented, workflows redesigned, metrics improved, and capacity scaled. Expect to walk through examples in depth, including what did not go to plan.
• Technology treated as a leadership responsibility rather than a delegated one, with comfort across data, integrations, information security, and AI, and either working knowledge of custodial, CRM, and planning platforms or the ability to come up to speed on a comparable stack quickly.
• A thinker and a problem solver who works through problems rather than around them, with the judgment and confidence to challenge a weak answer from a vendor, a partner, or from us.
• Decisions grounded in evidence: comfort building the case, quantifying the tradeoffs, and defending the conclusion.
• Securities licensing is not required.

WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE

• The other leaders of the firm direct their time to clients, investments, and growth rather than internal operations.
• Client service, operations, wealth management, and investments function as one connected system.
• Workflows are documented and repeatable, technology is integrated, and firm data is reliable.
• Cybersecurity, compliance, and continuity are in a defensible state, and the team operates independently.

This job description conveys the general scope of the role and is not an exhaustive list of duties.