Head of Operations

About 1st Formations At 1st Formations, we empower entrepreneurs to start, run, and grow their businesses with confidence. Running a business shouldn’t be slowed down by company formation, statutory compliance, accounting, or payroll. From day one, these essentials should be seamless, reliable, and intelligently handled — freeing founders to focus on building and scaling. We’re a leading UK provider of company formation and compliance services, building a modern, fully integrated technology platform that supports founders at every stage of their journey. Our platform brings together formation, compliance, accounting, payroll, and ongoing business support in one cohesive experience. No stitched-together services. No legacy workflows disguised as software. Just a single, scalable platform built for ambitious founders who want to move fast, stay compliant, and grow with confidence. Why Join Us Now? You’ll be joining a business with strong momentum, clear direction, and real opportunity for progression. £18m annual revenue, including £9m ARR Over 1 million companies formed Certified B Corp and Carbon Neutral Business Forecast to grow 5x–10x over the next three years The Role We are seeking a commercially minded Head of Operations to drive day-to-day operational performance and execution excellence across 1st Formations and its associated business lines. The individual will be responsible for driving operational performance, alignment, and execution across 1st Formations' customer-facing operations and associated service lines. This role provides operational leadership across customer sales, retention, customer service, mail, company secretarial (Co Sec), and the serviced offices/business centre, ensuring the company's vision is translated into scalable, efficient, and commercially successful outcomes. The Head of Operations will lead the integration and optimisation of these service lines and functions, ensuring consistent performance, operational resilience, and the delivery of the company's commercial objectives. Working in close partnership with the CEO, the Head of Operations will play a key role in translating strategic priorities into practical plans, ensuring disciplined execution, sustainable growth, and measurable performance across every function it owns. This is a hands-on leadership role; the Head of Operations sets the strategic direction for their functions but remains close to the day-to-day detail, working alongside function managers and front-line teams to ensure execution matches ambition. Key Responsibilities Own the operating strategy and day-to-day performance across customer sales, retention, customer service, mail, Co Sec, and the serviced offices/business centre; translating commercial objectives into functional plans while staying hands-on in execution. Set and manage the operating cadence for each function; targets, workflows, and standards, ensuring consistent delivery across all customer-facing teams. Build and own the reporting and KPI framework across these functions, giving leadership real-time visibility into performance, risk, and opportunity. Drive cross-functional collaboration, resolving operational bottlenecks to ensure smooth customer journeys and efficient ways of working. Partner with the CEO to evaluate growth opportunities, new service lines and market opportunities, assessing operational readiness to scale ahead of commitment. Develop and coach function managers and senior leaders, strengthening leadership capability and organisational effectiveness, and ensuring each function operates with clear ownership, commercial discipline, and measurable performance outcomes. Work with Product to lead operational improvement and transformation initiatives; systems, automation, process redesign, and technology enablement to enhance scalability, efficiency, and competitive advantage. Ensure operational resilience, enterprise risk management, and regulato