Chief Operating Officer (COO)

Application details

If, after reading the role description below, you’d like to apply, please send your CV and a cover letter to explaining why this role and why now. We’re far more interested in clarity of thought, ambition and judgement than perfectly polished applications. No agencies, please.

About us

Galeta is one of the UK’s fastest-growing wholesale bakeries. Every day we bake for around 1,200 of the country’s best coffee shops, restaurants, hotels and cultural institutions, from Selfridges and Tate to the independents that set the standard for the rest. We’re founder-led, privately owned, and we’re going somewhere.

Our ambition is simple and we’re not shy about it. We’re going to be the best-loved wholesale bakery in the UK. That means roughly doubling the size of the business in short order, growing both organically and through acquisition, and building something that customers, staff and the wider trade genuinely love. We’re going for broke. Nothing is going to get in our way.

About the role

This is the most important hire Galeta has ever made.

We’re looking for a Chief Operating Officer to be the operational counterweight to the founder, and the number two in the business. You’ll run the operating engine of the group day to day: the people, the production, the product, the marketing, the integration of the bakery we’ve just acquired, and all the cross-functional machinery that lets a growing business actually function. You’ll be the person who makes sure everything happens, who holds the leadership team to account on delivery, who builds the rhythm and the standards, and who lifts an enormous amount of operational weight off the founder so he can focus on the things only he can do.

This is not a role where the founder hands you the business and steps back. It’s a partnership. Galeta is founder-led and intends to stay that way. The founder is firmly in the chair, calling the shots on direction, growth, commercial strategy and acquisitions, and is closely involved in the day-to-day life of the business. What he needs sitting next to him is someone with the brainpower, experience and operational weight to be a true partner: someone who runs the operating side with real authority, who’s the first person he thinks out loud with, and who’s good enough that he genuinely trusts their judgement.

We need someone who’s excited by exactly that. Not someone looking for a soft landing or a vanity title, and not someone who wants to be CEO-in-waiting. Someone who’s been quietly waiting for the chance to be the trusted right hand to a founder who’s going for it, in a business with real momentum, real ambition and real upside. If that’s the role you’ve been preparing for, read on.

What you’ll own

The operating engine of the group, end to end. The Production Director, Head of Product, Head of Marketing and Head of HR all report to you. You set the cadence, the standards and the priorities across those functions, and you’re accountable for making sure they deliver.

The integration of the bakery we’ve just acquired into the Galeta group. People, systems, production, culture. Done properly, in a way that makes both businesses stronger. This is one of the biggest pieces of work on the table and it lands squarely with you.

The operational platform that lets us double the business without it falling over. Right people in the right seats. Right systems. Right processes. The unsexy infrastructure work that separates businesses that grow from businesses that try to grow.

The leadership rhythm of the company. Weekly, monthly, quarterly. The meetings that matter, the reviews that drive accountability, the operating cadence that keeps a fast-moving business honest. You own how the senior team works together and how things actually get done.

Cross-functional delivery on every major initiative. When something needs to happen across production, product, marketing and people at the same time, you’re the person making sure it lands.

Future acquisitions, on the integration side. You won’t be leading deals (the founder and FD own that), but you’ll be at the table as targets come into view, and you’ll inherit each one as it comes in.

A genuine partnership with the founder on everything else. You won’t own commercial direction or growth strategy, but you’ll be in the room and your voice will carry weight. The founder needs a sparring partner as much as he needs an executor, and that’s part of the job.

Who we’re looking for

You’ve run operations at serious scale before, probably as a COO, Operations Director or MD in a food, FMCG, hospitality or premium consumer business. You’ve taken a business through a doubling in size and you’ve got the scars and the stories to prove it. You’ve integrated an acquisition, or you’ve watched one get integrated badly and you know exactly what you’d do differently.

You’re as comfortable on a bakery floor at 4am as you are in a board meeting at 4pm, and you genuinely prefer a business where both still happen. You read a P&L the way other people read a newspaper. You’ve built and led senior teams, and the people who’ve worked for you would come and work for you again tomorrow.

You’re commercially literate without needing to own commercial. You understand that operations exists to serve the commercial engine, not to compete with it. You’re operationally credible, culturally the kind of leader people actually want to follow, and you bring an edge: you’re hungry, competitive, and slightly impatient with the way things are usually done.

Crucially, you know yourself well enough to know that the role you want is number two to a founder, not the top job. You’re not looking to prove you should be CEO. You’re looking for the partnership, the proximity, the pace and the chance to build something you’ll be proud of in ten years. The right candidate reads that paragraph and feels seen.

You probably won’t have come from a pure corporate background. If you have, you’ll have spent the last few years missing the pace and the proximity of a founder-led business and wanting to get back to it.

Working with the founder

The founder is staying firmly in the chair and staying close to the business. He’s not stepping back, and he’s not pretending to. What he is doing is hiring the partner he needs sitting next to him so the business can scale properly and so he can focus his energy where it matters most.

The relationship between founder and COO will be the most important working relationship in the company. We’ll invest in it accordingly: weekly one-to-ones, constant informal contact, real trust, and the kind of honest, direct working partnership that only happens when both people are genuinely in it together. You’ll have a founder who’s in your corner, who’ll back your calls, who’ll challenge you hard when he needs to, and who’ll expect the same from you.

This works for the right person and it doesn’t work for the wrong person. We’d rather find that out in the interview than six months in.

The honest bit on commitment

This isn’t a Monday-to-Friday, 9-to-5 job and we’re not going to pretend it is. It’s the number two role in a founder-led business that’s going for it, and the commitment looks like that. Early starts when production needs you. Long days when an integration milestone is landing. Weekends occasionally when it matters. Constant context-switching between the strategic and the immediate. The right person won’t need that softened. They’ll recognise it as the job.

The package

Senior base reflecting the seniority of the role. Performance bonus tied to the things that actually matter. Meaningful equity participation, because we want the person in this seat to build wealth alongside the business they’re building. Based at our Farringdon HQ, with regular time at the production sites and wherever else the business needs you to be.