Director of Operations

Director of Operations

Location: Dubai (JLT)

Global remit: UAE, UK x 3, Nigeria (Lagos) with planned expansion into the USA and Asia.

About Baron & Cabot

Baron & Cabot operates an international property investment business spanning sales, processing, asset management and technology. Historically sales-led, we are transforming the business into a data- and technology-enabled operating platform spanning sales, processing, decisioning, and asset management, built to scale across multiple countries.

We have established offices across the UAE and UK, an office opening in Lagos, and planned expansion into the USA and Asia.

Role Overview

We are hiring a Director of Operations to work directly with the founder and take ownership of execution across the business. This role exists to turn strategy into reality, impose operational discipline, and build systems that allow growth without chaos.

This is not a project management role and it is not a lifestyle job. It is a senior leadership role for someone who wants responsibility, pace, pressure, and the opportunity to help navigate a business through a significant transformation.

What You'll Do

You will operate at two levels at all times. At a high level, you will help navigate the business alongside the founder, making decisions that shape direction, priorities, and scale. At ground level, you will fix friction, tighten processes, improve data quality, and ensure teams execute consistently.

You will own operational execution across sales, marketing, processing, back office, technology and regional offices. Each function must operate against clear metrics, defined standards, and predictable rhythms. When performance slips, you are expected to intervene decisively.

Process, Systems & Scale

You will build and enforce scalable processes that make performance predictable. This includes designing and documenting SOPs, cleaning up handoffs between teams, and ensuring the business can grow without relying on individual heroics.

Operational cleanliness matters: accurate data, clear ownership, tight follow-up, fewer errors, faster cycle times, and fewer surprises.

Technology, Automation & AI

You will own the operational roadmap for technology, automation and AI. This does not mean writing all the code yourself, but it does mean deciding what should be automated, what should be built versus bought, and what humans should stop doing.

You will work with internal teams and external vendors to deploy tools into sales and operations, and you will be judged on adoption and measurable improvement, not on how impressive the tools look.

People & Performance

People management is part of the job. You will work closely with HR but you will own performance. That includes role clarity, accountability, difficult conversations, and dealing with underperformance quickly and fairly.

This role requires calm authority and emotional steadiness, not avoidance.

Working With the Founder

You will work directly with the founder as their execution partner. Your job is to translate vision into priorities, plans, and timelines, to push back when ideas are distracting or premature, and to reduce the founder's involvement in day-to-day operations over time.

Compensation Progression

This role includes a formal annual compensation review and a documented progression plan. Salary progression is linked to sustained business performance and scope expansion using profit-linked milestones.

Base salary begins at AED 25,000 per month.

During annual review, base salary can step up through milestone-based bands (for example AED 35,000/month, AED 50,000/month, and up to AED 75,000/month for a COO-level remit), depending on sustained Normalised Net Profit performance and agreed operational guardrails.

The exact milestones, profit thresholds, guardrails and review triggers are shared and agreed during the interview process and confirmed in writing.

Who This Role Suits

You complement big-picture thinking with exceptional attention to detail. You care about daily improvement driven by data and systems, You have exceptionally high standards and a sharp eye for detail, but you know when to ship, iterate, and keep momentum. You enjoy pace, responsibility, and complexity, and you're comfortable operating across geographies, cultures and time zones.

Requirements

• Senior operations leadership experience in a scaling, performance-driven business
• Strong commercial and KPI literacy
• Proven ability to design, implement and enforce processes across teams
• Strong systems and technology fluency (coding is a bonus, not required)
• Comfortable working directly with a founder and taking full accountability
• UAE and UK operational familiarity is a plus; exposure to Nigeria/emerging markets is a plus.

Important Context

The role is based in Dubai (JLT). Hours can be heavy. This is not a role for someone optimising for work-life balance. It is for someone who wants to build something serious, gain rare experience, and be part of navigating a business through its next phase of growth.

How to Apply

Apply via LinkedIn and include a short note answering:

1. What system have you built that created measurable improvement
2. What's the hardest cross-team problem you've solved and how did you solve it