Lithium Business Operations Lead

marianaminerals; Houston (TX); On-site; USD 90,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

Mariana Minerals is seeking a Business Operations Manager to drive the operational strategy and performance management for its Lithium business, reporting to senior leadership and coordinating across Finance, Business Development and Operations.

Based in Houston or San Francisco, this role combines finance insights with field operations, building scalable processes, dashboards, and ISO 9001 initiatives to support rapid growth.

Qualifications

• 5-10+ years in business operations or program management; experience in energy, chemicals, manufacturing, or another industrial sector is a plus
• Demonstrated ability to build and own operational reporting systems (define KPIs, design dashboards, implement data collection workflows)
• Experience implementing or maintaining a quality management system; familiarity with ISO 9001 or similar frameworks preferred
• Able to build operational structure around the technical and commercial work of others
• Strong communicator with experience distilling complex operational issues into clear updates for leadership and keeping distributed teams aligned
• Proven track record leading cross-functional projects in fast-moving environments with minimal oversight
• Experience working directly with frontline operations and executive leadership; comfortable influencing without authority across all levels
• Comfortable on-site in an industrial environment; this is a full-time, in-person role in Houston, TX

Responsibilities

• Financial and Operational performance management: Own the business performance framework for the Lithium business — integrating operational KPIs with financial metrics to give leadership a clear view of cost, production, and margin performance against plan.
• FP&A partnership: Work closely with the Finance team to support budgeting, forecasting, and variance analysis. Build the operational context behind the numbers and help translate field data into finance-ready reporting.
• Greenfield project development operations: Partner with the Business Development team to build the processes, playbooks, and tracking systems that govern how projects advance from origination through definitive feasibility study (DFS) and into construction.
• Business process improvement: Identify and drive improvements across operational and corporate functions, including finance, supply chain, and HSE. Design scalable processes that support growth without adding unnecessary overhead. Lead the company’s ISO 9001 certification effort.
• Digitization and reporting infrastructure: Partner with Mariana's software and data teams to build and improve the reporting systems and digital tools that support operations. Ensure data flows cleanly from the field to the boardroom.
• Executive reporting and communications: Own the cadence of leadership reporting, ensuring leadership always has the information they need, when they need it.

Skills

Operational reporting

KPIs dashboards

Cross-functional leadership

Data workflows

Communication skills

Project management

Job description

Mariana Minerals is seeking a Business Operations Manager to drive the operational strategy and performance management for its Lithium business, reporting to senior leadership and coordinating across Finance, Business Development and Operations.

Based in Houston or San Francisco, this role combines finance insights with field operations, building scalable processes, dashboards, and ISO 9001 initiatives to support rapid growth.