VP Operations & Scale

ADPma, LLC specializes in the design, certification, procurement, and sale of proprietary parts to the commercial and defense aerospace industries. Founded over 20 years ago in the East Tennessee foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, we have a well-established and hard-earned reputation for customer centricity and engineering excellence.

With the support of new ownership and a growing leadership team, we are aggressively expanding our product portfolio, adding value to our customers, and growing the company.

Our daily purpose is to enable safe, reliable, sustainable, and cost-effective flight worldwide.

To help us work toward our purpose and further accelerate our trajectory, we are recruiting a Vice President of Operations & Scale to join our leadership team. This individual will report directly to the President and will be chiefly responsible for leading and managing all operational aspects of our business, to include: engineering, procurement, quality, supply chain, logistics, inside sales, fulfillment, and IT.

This is a full-time, on-site position.  The VP Operations & Scale will work alongside a growing team of approximately 20 engineering, quality control, sales, business development, and administrative team members.  We expect the annual salary compensation to be between $175,000 - $225,000, depending on experience, skills, cultural fit, and preference for performance vs. fixed compensation.  Additionally, health insurance, profit-share, and paid time off are also available.

This role will be responsible for leading and scaling our business via the following responsibilities and tasks:

• Embody and build upon ADPma’s customer-centric culture.
• Drive excellence in the systems, processes, team, and accountability mechanisms across all aspects of our business, including primarily within procurement and supply chain, but also across business development, marketing, sales, IT, HR, fulfillment, compliance, and general management and administration.
• Infuse our organization (via systems and coaching) with entrepreneurial energy, executive presence, analytical rigor, financial precision, business judgment, and disciplined decision-making.
• Partner with the President to: help define and execute our Primary Strategy; recruit, hire, retain, incentivize, and develop the team; ensure compliance with all applicable laws and regulations; and grow and enhance our existing culture of compliance, safety, ethical behavior, and good judgment.
• Be chiefly accountable for the management, performance, and scalability of the Engineering, Certification, Production, Quality, Procurement, and Inside Sales functions.
• Implement, monitor, and hold the team accountable to KPIs.
• Optimize inventory procurement practices, including: vendor identification, management, and relations; S&OP forecasting and execution.
• Partner with Sales teams to build and manage a long-term, profit-driven, value-adding CRM, which will optimize outbound sales activity and also inform the product development “greenlight” process.
• Bring relentless discipline to the team’s meeting cadence, communication rhythms, and operating systems.  Keep the trains running on time. Orient the focus of the team (especially the focus of the leaders) to the most important things. Oversee cross-functional projects or initiatives and drive decisions.
• Be a “player-coach” who can relentlessly get stuff done with your own two hands, and who can also hire/manage/develop an action-oriented team.
• Increase the pace, intensity, and quality of organizational decision-making and execution.
• Understand and honor our past – grow and build our future.

Many of the following characteristics will resonate with the perfect candidate:

• You’re a unique blend of manager and doer.
• You’re a builder, who likes to deliver real and tangible value to the world, disrupt industries, and serve customers.
• You’re an optimizer, who loves to create order and clarity through the use of systems, processes, and data.
• You love business, growing, learning, and improving.
• You strive to be objective and rational, and to identify and mitigate biases, blind spots, and noise in decision-making.
• You’re eager to dive into a high-performing, rapidly-growing business, roll up your sleeves, and Get. Stuff. Done.
• You have a strong and clear voice focused on excellence, precision, education, and accountability.
• You have strong judgment and people often come to you for your opinion.
• You have past experience in operations, including building and leading teams, interacting with
• Vendors and suppliers, and delivering solutions to customers.
• You have past experience standing up, stitching together, integrating, and rolling out web-based ERP systems and software.
• You have past experience developing metrics or KPIs, assigning responsible parties, and holding people accountable to results.
• You know what excellence and scale looks and feels like because you’ve been there before.

While it’s essential for us to outline the characteristics and competencies of the perfect candidate, it might be equally important to list the types of candidates who need not apply:

• A seat-filler, content to spend your time in a slow-moving, bureaucratic, low-growth environment.
• An order-taker, paralyzed by indecision until someone directs your day-to-day activity and tells you what to do.
• A maintainer, uneasy about growth rates above 10%.
• A political animal, who advances via corporate politics rather than value creation.
• A head in the sand, who wants to “just do my job” and not actively search for other ways to improve our business and team.

If you feel you might be a good fit and this is a challenge that excites you, please submit your application by answering the questions and following the directions to the right. We look forward to getting to know you through an open and candid hiring process. If not, please pass this opportunity along to anyone in your circle who you think would be a good fit.

Salary : $175,000 - $225,000