Chief Operating Officer

About Aardvark Studios

Aardvark Studios is an independent experiential marketing company located just outside Philadelphia.

Since 2007, we’ve helped agencies and brands bring ambitious ideas to life through live experiences, mobile tours and custom-built environments.

We design them. We engineer and fabricate them. We integrate technology into them. We staff, operate and maintain them.

Our capabilities include creative design, design engineering, custom fabrication, technology integration, program management, nationwide tour operations, field execution, maintenance, warehousing and fleet operations.

Aardvark has a talented team, an incredible facility, great clients, serious capabilities and more momentum than at any point in our history.

We are expanding our shop, our tour operations and our fleet. We are doing bigger jobs, more jobs and some of the best work we have ever produced.

We are now looking for an exceptional Chief Operating Officer to help lead the next stage of our growth.

The Opportunity

The COO will lead everything that happens after the sale.

This includes: program management, production and fabrication, tour operations, field execution, manage our facilities, information technology, and operational systems, processes and accountability.

The COO will work directly with the founder and leadership team, stay close to the work and have meaningful authority to make decisions, develop people, improve systems, restructure departments and drive results.

The opportunity is to help scale a serious independent company without stripping away the creativity, speed, energy and customer focus that made it successful.

Who We Are Looking For

This is not a first-time COO role.

We are looking for a proven operating leader who has already done this successfully. You have led a complex operation. You have built and developed teams, installed operating systems, improved performance and produced measurable results that you can clearly demonstrate.

You do not need to come directly from the experiential marketing world, but it helps.

You do need to understand complex, project-based work involving job costing, labor planning and productivity, production schedules, quality and attention to detail, capacity and resource planning, demanding clients, multiple projects moving simultaneously, deadlines that do not move, and execution in both controlled and unpredictable environments.

You understand that good operations are not created through meetings, slogans or additional layers of management. They are created through clear expectations, strong people, useful information, disciplined follow-through and consistent accountability.

The Founder and COO Partnership

Aardvark was built by a visionary founder who moves quickly, sees opportunities and generates ideas.

The COO must be a true integrator.

You know how to take a vision, turn it into a practical plan, align people around it and drive it through execution. You bring focus, discipline and accountability without slowing down the creativity and speed that make Aardvark special.

You respect what has already been built while bringing your own informed point of view. You are confident enough to lead and humble enough to listen. You can teach the founder, learn from him and build a relationship based on trust, honesty and mutual respect.

The goal is not to create another founder. The goal is to create a strong partnership between a visionary and an integrator whose strengths complement one another.

What You Will Be Expected to Accomplish

• Build a stronger team. Develop existing leaders, recruit exceptional talent where needed and establish clear ownership throughout the organization. Create a team that solves problems, makes decisions and delivers results without unnecessary dependence on the founder or COO.
• Put the right people in the right seats. Evaluate the organization honestly and thoughtfully. Clarify roles, responsibilities, authority and measurable expectations. Make difficult personnel decisions when necessary while developing people who have the ability and desire to grow.
• Unify production and tour operations. Create one coordinated operating organization across program management, fabrication, production, tour operations and field execution. Improve communication, handoffs, resource planning and accountability from project kickoff through completion.
• Install a practical operating system. Implement or strengthen a proven operating framework such as EOS, Lean or another system that works. We do not want process for the sake of process. We want clear priorities, useful meetings, visible commitments, fast issue resolution and consistent follow-through.
• Build useful scoreboards and dashboards. Give the team timely information that helps them make better decisions while there’s still time to affect the outcome. Key information should include labor performance, job profitability, project status, capacity, quality, deadlines and operational risks.
• Improve project execution and profitability. Strengthen estimating handoffs, project planning, labor management, purchasing, scheduling, job costing, change management and project closeout. Ensure teams understand both the creative objective and the financial expectations of every project.
• Raise the standard of quality. Protect and improve the attention to detail that defines Aardvark's work. Quality includes the finished experience, the fit and finish of what we build, the condition of our vehicles, the cleanliness of our facilities and the professionalism of our teams.
• Build an organization that lasts. Create systems, leaders and habits that remain strong without depending on one person. The organization should become stronger because of your leadership, not dependent on your presence.

Your First Priorities

Your first three priorities should be: People. People. People.

You will begin by understanding the team, developing leaders, identifying gaps and making sure the right people are in the right roles. From there: clarify the organizational structure and decision rights; understand the economics and operational drivers of the business; identify the most important systems and processes that need to improve; establish useful operating rhythms, dashboards and accountability; build a practical roadmap for scalable growth.

We do not expect the COO to arrive with predetermined answers. We expect the COO to listen, learn, evaluate and then act decisively.

Required Experience

The strongest candidates will have:

• Significant senior operating leadership experience as a COO, division president, general manager or comparable operating executive
• Experience leading approximately 25 to 50 or more employees across multiple departments or operating functions
• Experience managing a business unit with approximately $20 million to $50 million or more in revenue
• A demonstrated history of building teams, developing leaders and implementing operating systems
• Strong knowledge of job costing, labor management and project profitability
• Experience overseeing complex, deadline-driven, project-based work
• A record of measurable operational and financial improvement
• Experience partnering directly with a founder, entrepreneur or highly visionary leader
• The ability to explain clearly what you inherited, what you changed and what results you produced
• The willingness and ability to roll up your sleeves and get into the work. This is not a role for an executive who leads through a layer of vice presidents who do the actual thinking and execution. Aardvark is a hands-on company and the COO must be a hands-on leader.

Relevant backgrounds may include experiential marketing, live events, touring, theme parks, commercial or specialty construction, custom manufacturing, fabrication or other complex project-based industries.

Leadership Characteristics

Proven. You have already produced results in an operation with real complexity, pressure and accountability.

Humble. You listen before reaching conclusions. You do not need to be the hero of every story.

Decisive. You gather the right information, make decisions and accept responsibility for the outcome.

People focused. You develop strong leaders, address underperformance and build teams that become more capable over time.

Systems minded. You know how to create repeatability and accountability without burying people in bureaucracy.

Financially literate. You understand job costing, margins, labor, capacity, budgets and the operational decisions that drive financial performance.

Detail oriented. You understand that quality is often determined by the small things that others overlook.

Direct and respectful. You communicate clearly, tell the truth and handle difficult conversations without creating unnecessary drama.

Resourceful. You know how to solve problems, work through ambiguity and make progress without waiting for perfect conditions.

Ambitious. You want to build something meaningful and leave a lasting mark. You should have the capability and ambition to believe you could run the company one day. That is not a promise of succession. It is the level of leader we want to hire.

Authority

Within agreed budgets and strategic guardrails, the COO will have meaningful authority to hire and terminate employees, restructure departments, clarify roles and reporting relationships, select and improve operating systems, make operational decisions, allocate resources, approve budgeted spending, and hold leaders and departments accountable for results.

Early in the relationship, the COO and founder will work closely together to accelerate learning and establish trust. As trust and understanding grow, the COO will be expected to operate with substantial independence.

Compensation

Aardvark intends to pay very well for the right person.

The compensation package will include:

• Base salary: $245,000 – $285,000, depending on experience
• Meaningful performance-based bonus opportunity
• Benefits
• Relocation assistance when appropriate

Location and Commitment

This is an in-person leadership role based at our headquarters in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania.

Aardvark designs and builds physical experiences, operates a large facility, manages a fleet and leads teams whose work happens in the real world. This role cannot be led effectively from a distance.

The position will also require availability outside traditional working hours when projects, clients or field operations require leadership attention.

Why Aardvark

The experiential marketing industry is consolidating rapidly. As more companies are absorbed into larger organizations, talented operators can find themselves separated from the work, slowed by layers of approval and treated like numbers on a spreadsheet.

Aardvark offers something different.

We are independent. We are growing. We are close to the work. Good ideas can move quickly. Great people can make decisions, take ownership and see the impact of what they do.

This is an opportunity to lead talented people, do incredible work and help scale one of the last great independent experiential marketing companies without losing the creativity, energy and care that made it successful.

How to Apply

We are not looking for a generic résumé and a standard cover letter.

Send us your résumé along with a brief note (two or three paragraphs) telling us where you have done this kind of work before and why this opportunity is right for you at this point in your career.

If there is strong mutual interest, we will ask you to walk us through your operating history in more detail: what you inherited, what you changed, how you built the team, what systems you installed, what results you produced and what remained stronger after you left.