Rare Plant Fairy

office • USA • unknown • $105–137k / год

**Director of Operations** **Rare Plant Fairy | Detroit, Michigan | On-site** Rare Plant Fairy grows and sells some of the rarest tropical plants in the world to collectors across the United States and overseas, from our nursery and tissue culture lab on Detroit's east side. Founded in 2020 by Jocelyn Ho, a 2025 EY Entrepreneur of the Year, Crain's Detroit Business 40 Under 40 honoree and 2026 Tory Burch Foundation Fellow, the company is fully bootstrapped, has built its own niche in the industry, and is writing the playbook as it goes. We are hiring our first Director of Operations to serve as Jocelyn's second-in-command: the leader who owns the day to day and drives operational excellence across the company, end to end, so she can focus on scaling the business. **The opportunity** Our inventory is alive. Growth timing, quality, bench space and demand all shape what we can sell and when, which makes this a genuinely complex operation for its size. We have reached the point where the next stage of growth depends on process, structure and leadership rather than effort, and that work is this role. In a company our size, the changes you make are visible immediately. **Key responsibilities** **Lead the leadership team.** Run the weekly leadership meeting, own the company scorecard, and hold department leaders accountable to their numbers, including Sales and Marketing. **Develop the leadership bench.** Grow our managers into leaders who own their areas outright, and identify where and when the next management hire is needed. **Scale fulfillment.** Map packing and shipping end to end and rebuild the process so it holds as order volume grows. **Lead production.** Our nursery operation spans propagation, the greenhouse and the tissue culture lab, and reports to you through our Senior Grower. Set the standards and measures that allow that team to make routine decisions without escalation. **Manage living inventory.** Maintain accuracy, reconcile to the financials, and align purchasing with demand. **Own payroll and people operations,** supported by an outsourced HR partner on complex matters. **Maintain financial visibility.** Own the 13-week cash flow forecast and manage cash in partnership with our bookkeeper and CPA. **Experience and qualifications** * Senior operations leadership at the Director of Operations, VP of Operations or COO level * Experience as second-in-command to a founder or CEO, in a seat where you helped take a company from seven figures in revenue to eight * A record of building and developing leaders, including managers hired into functions outside your own expertise and grown into owners of their areas * Demonstrated success building the processes, standards and management structure that allow a growing team to operate without founder involvement * Direct ownership of payroll and people operations at a small or mid-size company * Direct leadership of an on-site hourly workforce * Financial fluency across the P&L, cash flow, labor cost and inventory value Preferred but not required: living or perishable goods, direct-to-consumer or e-commerce fulfillment, greenhouse or controlled-environment production, a hobbyist or collector market, EOS, or business ownership. We weigh leadership capability and judgment more heavily than industry background. **Who thrives here** The right person thinks like an owner and takes time to understand our people, processes and constraints before making significant structural changes. They are equally comfortable resolving a packing-line problem in the morning and planning next year's team in the afternoon. They bring conviction, make decisions, and hold people to what was agreed. They want to own the day to day so our founder can focus on scaling the business, and to build something durable in the process. **Our core values** Our purpose is to propagate happiness through extraordinary plants, guided by four core values: No Bull, Own Your Outcome, Grow or Go, and Customer Success Is Our Success. **Compensation and location** * On-site in Detroit. $105,000 to $137,000 base, plus performance bonus and long-term incentive eligibility. Relocation candidates welcome.