Operations Manager - Build & Own

AI Acquisition; South Africa; On-site; ZAR 1,200,000 - 2,400,000; Full time

Job summary

AI Acquisition in South Africa is seeking a hands-on operator to run the Customer Success organization day-to-day: own the P&L, build the accountability infrastructure from scratch, and manage department heads and account managers directly. You will run it with a bias for action, diagnose fast, and implement real systems rather than reports.

This role offers real accountability, cross-functional partnerships with sales and delivery, and a path to influence growth.

Qualifications

• Led large metrics-driven operation with documented systems.
• Direct ownership of customer success/account management functions at scale.
• Verifiable P&L, retention, or margin ownership with numbers.
• In-house operating experience; not just consulting or fractional work.

Responsibilities

• P&L Ownership — full ownership of the function: targets, retention, expansion, cost-to-serve. Own the number.
• Operating System — build the accountability infrastructure from scratch: account segmentation by risk, escalation paths, quality guardrails, scorecards, and operating cadence.
• Direct Management — direct management of account management leads and senior operators with clear expectations and consequences.
• Cross-Functional Partnership — partner with sales and delivery leadership on handoffs, capacity planning, and pipeline-to-onboarding flow; fix root causes upstream.
• Hiring & People Ops — collaborate with People & Talent to build management depth, define profiles, set standards.
• Founder Leverage — free founders from day-to-day operational firefighting to focus on vision, growth, and external relationships.

Job description

About AI Acquisition

AI Acquisition is a bootstrapped, multi-entity business running high-velocity acquisition, coaching, SaaS, and performance marketing operations. We are founder-led, fast, and commercially driven. We build it, test it, and scale it before others are still planning.

The Opportunity

Our Customer Success organization has grown fast thousands of active clients, a high monthly intake of new accounts, and a large distributed team of account managers. Growth has outpaced the operating system underneath it.

We need a hands-on operator to run this organization day-to-day: own the P&L, build the accountability infrastructure from scratch, manage department heads and account managers directly, and make the hard calls when performance or capacity issues show up. This is not an advisory or strategy seat. You will be in the org, running it.

How We Operate

This role is built around how we actually work. If these don't sound like you, this isn't the right seat:

Own the number, not the narrative you're accountable for the outcome, not for explaining why it slipped.

Bias for action diagnose fast, act faster. We don't reward analysis without output.

Build the system once if you're solving the same problem twice, you haven't actually solved it.

Dive deep go to the root cause and the real data. Don't manage from summaries.

Make the hard call exits, resets, restructures. You decide; you don't escape what's yours to own.

Insist on the highest standard inconsistency is a system failure, not an individual one. Fix the system.

What You'll Own

P&L Ownership — full ownership of the function: targets, retention, expansion, cost-to-serve. You own the number.

Operating System — build the accountability infrastructure from scratch: account segmentation by risk, escalation paths, quality guardrails, scorecards, and operating cadence. Real systems with named outputs, not templates.

Direct Management — direct management of account management leads and senior operators. Radical clarity on expectations, consequences, and growth. You make the hard calls without deferring upward.

Cross-Functional Partnership — partner with sales and delivery leadership on handoffs, capacity planning, and pipeline-to-onboarding flow. Fix root cause upstream, not just symptoms.

Hiring & People Ops — partner with People & Talent to build management depth. Define the profiles, set the standard, hold the bar.

Founder Leverage — free the founders from day-to-day operational firefighting so they can focus on vision, growth, and external relationships.

What We Need From You

You've run a large, metrics-driven operation and turned recurring problems into documented systems the sector matters less than the operating rigor. Agency, high-growth SaaS with a large CS/AM function, marketplace or high-volume service operations all fit.

Direct ownership of an account management, client services, or customer success function at scale a large team and a high account volume.

Verifiable P&L, retention, or margin ownership improved during your specific tenure, with real numbers you can walk us through.

Built operating infrastructure from scratch not inherited, not fractional.

Made hard people decisions: exits, restructures, real performance management.

In-house operating experience not exclusively consulting or fractional work.

Managed teams of 30+ with direct reports at manager/lead level.

High agency and urgency you move before you're asked, and you push back when needed.

Nice to Have

Background in a rigorous, systems-driven operations environment (e.g. Amazon-style operations).

Agency, advertising, or performance-marketing experience.

Improved retention or reduced churn by a documented, measurable amount.

Built an operating cadence QA reviews, KPI dashboards, incentive structures that outlasted your tenure.

Experience managing distributed or remote teams across geographies.

Our Process

After an initial conversation, our process includes a working exercise: we'll give you a real operating problem and ask you to show us how you'd size it up and fix it not describe your philosophy, actually work the problem. This is how we evaluate every senior hire. If that sounds uncomfortable, this probably isn't the right role.

The Environment

This is a fast, high-standards environment. We change direction quickly and we hold a high bar. The founding team is commercially excellent and operationally under-resourced. You will have real authority, real accountability, and real upside.

If you need consensus to act, a structured onboarding program, or six months to understand the business before driving outcomes, this isn't the right role.

If you've done it before, can size up what you're looking at within 30 days, and want to build something worth building we want to talk.

Compensation is competitive with the role's scope and accountability. Details are confirmed during the process.