Chief Operating Officer – Marketing, AI-Services

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in South Africa, +5 more states.

📋 Description

• Oversee the daily operations of the Customer Success organization, managing approximately 2,500 active clients, 250 monthly new-client onboardings, and a team of around 100 individuals.

• Assume complete P&L responsibility for targets, retention, expansion, and cost-to-serve.

• Establish an accountability framework, which includes account-risk segmentation, escalation procedures, expectation-setting parameters, scorecards, quality assurance on client commitments, and operational cadence.

• Directly supervise account management leads and senior operators.

• Set clear expectations, enforce necessary consequences, drive growth, and implement exits, restructures, and resets as needed.

• Collaborate with sales and delivery leadership to streamline handoffs, capacity planning, and the pipeline-to-onboarding process.

• Work in partnership with People & Talent to enhance management depth and define hiring criteria and standards.

• Relieve founders from daily operational challenges, allowing them to concentrate on vision, growth, and external relationships.

• Assess variations in client experience within the first 30 days and reconstruct the operational structure to minimize reliance on individual heroics.

⛳️ Requirements

• Proven experience in building or operating within a marketing, advertising, or performance-marketing agency.

• An agency background is essential; candidates from IT services, software development, staffing/recruiting, pure SaaS product companies, or in-house brand roles will not be considered.

• Direct management experience in an account management, client services, or customer success function at scale, involving 50+ team members and hundreds to thousands of accounts.

• Documented P&L, retention, or margin responsibility with evidence of improvement during the candidate’s tenure.

• Experience in constructing operational infrastructure from the ground up, rather than inherited or fractional systems.

• Proven track record of making difficult personnel decisions, including exits, restructures, and effective performance management.

• In-house operational experience is required; candidates with exclusive consulting or fractional work backgrounds will not qualify.

• Experience managing teams of 30+ with direct reports at the manager or lead level.

• High sense of agency and urgency; able to act proactively and provide pushback when necessary.

• Nice to have: Experience as COO, Head of Customer Success, VP of Operations, or Director of Client Services at a founder-led marketing agency with 50–500 employees.

• Nice to have: Demonstrated improvement in retention or reduction in churn.

• Nice to have: Experience in operating cadence, including quality assurance reviews, KPI dashboards, or incentive frameworks.

• Nice to have: Experience managing distributed or remote teams across different geographies.

• Nice to have: Public writing or speaking engagements related to operating philosophy.

🏝️ Benefits

• Competitive compensation that reflects the scope and accountability of the role.

• Genuine authority and accountability in the position.

• Significant potential for upside growth.