The Opportunity: Chief Operating Officer (COO)

Location

Miami or Orlando, FL

Reports To

Executive Leadership

Company Overview

Our client is a growth-stage technology company operating at the intersection of mission-critical technology, public-sector markets, and advanced operational capabilities. The organization has an established commercial foundation and is entering a new phase of growth as it expands its technology portfolio, pursues larger strategic opportunities, and builds the infrastructure required to operate at significantly greater scale. The company is led by an entrepreneurial executive team with deep experience across national security, technology, capital markets, and business building. They believe the opportunity ahead is substantially larger than the organization that exists today and are deliberately investing in exceptional leadership talent to help build the company required to capture it.

This is not a mature organization looking for someone to maintain an existing operating system. The company is evolving rapidly, priorities move quickly, and many of the processes required for its next stage of growth still need to be built. The successful candidate will have the opportunity to shape how the organization operates, how leaders are held accountable, and how strategy is translated into measurable execution.

Position Overview

The COO will serve as the senior internal operating leader of the company and a critical partner to the executive leadership team. While other members of the executive team remain focused on customers, strategic partnerships, technology, capital formation, and long-term growth, the COO will own the operating cadence required to turn those opportunities into results.

This leader will bring structure to a highly dynamic environment without introducing unnecessary bureaucracy. They will establish clear priorities, create visibility into performance, strengthen accountability across functional leaders, and ensure that commitments made throughout the organization translate into execution.

The mandate spans the enterprise. The COO will work across finance, manufacturing and supply chain, product, sales, talent, and other operating functions to connect the entire business equation and ensure that each part of the organization is executing against a coherent plan.

This is fundamentally a builder's role. The right person will be comfortable moving between executive-level strategy and highly practical operating problems, creating systems where none exist, challenging assumptions with data, and personally stepping into issues when required.

Key Responsibilities

• Partner directly with executive leadership to translate company strategy into clear operating priorities, plans, and measurable outcomes.
• Own the company's weekly, monthly, and quarterly operating cadence and continually improve how leadership evaluates performance.
• Establish meaningful KPIs, dashboards, reporting mechanisms, and accountability systems across the organization.
• Create clear ownership around priorities, deliverables, decision rights, and functional responsibilities.
• Connect performance across finance, product, operations, manufacturing, supply chain, sales, and talent so leadership has an integrated view of the business.
• Maintain strong visibility into revenue performance, expenses, cash requirements, operating capacity, and other critical business indicators.
• Identify execution gaps early, determine root causes, and ensure corrective action occurs.
• Build scalable operating processes that increase discipline and repeatability without slowing the organization down.
• Drive cross-functional alignment and ensure strategic decisions are effectively communicated and translated throughout the company.
• Coach and challenge functional leaders while creating a culture in which commitments, deadlines, and performance standards matter.
• Partner closely with talent leadership to strengthen organizational design, onboarding, performance management, and leadership development.
• Support evaluation and execution of major strategic initiatives, partnerships, new market opportunities, and potential inorganic growth opportunities.
• Help build the operating infrastructure required to support substantial organizational and commercial expansion.

Qualifications

The ideal candidate is an exceptional operator who combines analytical rigor with practical judgment and strong people leadership. They understand that metrics are a tool for driving outcomes rather than an end in themselves. They are comfortable evaluating financial and operational performance, but equally capable of understanding the people, organizational, and execution issues behind the numbers. This individual should thrive in environments where the destination is clear but the path is not. They will be expected to make decisions with incomplete information, create structure where needed, and adjust rapidly as the company evolves. Most importantly, this person must be comfortable being accountable for results rather than simply advising others on what should happen.

Preferred Qualifications

• Significant leadership experience in a demanding, high-accountability operating environment.
• Demonstrated success translating strategy into measurable organizational execution.
• Strong financial and business acumen with fluency around P&Ls, cash flow, forecasting, operating metrics, and business performance.
• Experience leading across multiple functions rather than operating exclusively within a single functional specialty.
• Track record of building operating systems, processes, dashboards, and accountability mechanisms from the ground up.
• Experience within a growth-stage, entrepreneurial, restructuring, or rapidly evolving organization.
• Exposure to technology businesses involving hardware, manufacturing, supply chain, or complex physical operations strongly preferred.
• Experience within defense technology, dual-use technology, aerospace, industrial technology, public-sector technology, or another mission-critical operating environment is highly attractive.
• Military or national-security leadership experience strongly preferred.
• Prior P&L ownership is highly valued but may not be required for an otherwise exceptional operator with demonstrated financial aptitude and enterprise-level responsibility.
• Experience supporting strategic partnerships, major commercial initiatives, acquisitions, or other complex growth opportunities is preferred.
• Exceptional analytical ability coupled with the judgment to recognize when numbers alone do not tell the entire story.
• Proven ability to lead and influence senior functional leaders while maintaining strong working relationships across an organization.
• Ability to build structure without creating bureaucracy.
• Willingness to remain hands-on and personally solve problems despite operating at the executive level.
• High integrity, discipline, humility, resilience, and personal accountability.
• Strong mission orientation and a genuine desire to build something rather than simply manage what already exists.

Leadership Profile

The successful candidate will likely have spent their career in environments where standards are high, resources are finite, information is imperfect, and execution matters.

They should be naturally analytical and comfortable challenging assumptions with evidence, but they cannot be rigid. They must be able to understand people, organizational dynamics, and changing circumstances well enough to know when a process should be followed and when the situation requires adaptation.

This is not a role for a lone-wolf entrepreneur or a career administrator.

The company is looking for an integrator and enterprise leader: someone who can bring talented people together, establish a common operating picture, create accountability, and ensure the organization consistently finishes what it starts.

The strongest candidates will combine intensity with humility. They will hold themselves and others to demanding standards while building trust and creating an environment where people understand what is expected of them and want to perform.

Compensation & Opportunity

The role offers a competitive executive compensation package consisting of base compensation, performance-based upside, and significant long-term equity participation.

The leadership team views ownership as an important component of the opportunity. They are looking for an executive who wants to participate meaningfully in the value they help create and who evaluates the opportunity accordingly.

Work Environment & Travel

This is a highly collaborative executive role with regular interaction across the leadership team and operating functions. The company maintains flexibility around location but expects the COO to spend meaningful time alongside leadership and operating teams. Periodic travel should be expected for executive planning, customer or partner engagements, operating reviews, facilities, and other strategic initiatives.

The environment is fast-moving and entrepreneurial. Priorities may evolve as opportunities develop, and the successful candidate must be energized rather than frustrated by that reality. For someone who wants a finished playbook, this will likely be the wrong opportunity. For someone who wants the mandate, ownership, and resources to help write the playbook, it is a rare one.