Operations Manager

OVERVIEW

Kingdom Supercultures designs and supplies new functional ingredients that solve unmet needs in pet and human health.  We design our ingredients by sourcing new natural microbes, selecting strains with exceptional functionalities, and combining select strains into synergistic communities.  We founded Kingdom in 2019 to cultivate healthier living through natural microbes, raised $30M in funding from top investors, and are actively supplying ingredients to large CPG companies.  Our long-term vision is to create an entirely new generation of efficacious ingredients made from natural microbes.

We’re looking for a high-performing and growth-oriented Operations Manager to join our small but mighty team.  This individual will stand up manufacturing operations that will take Superculture ingredients from the lab to the real world, driving millions of dollars in revenue in the first year, and adding capabilities and scale to keep up with fast-growing customer demands. 

This is a full-time, in-person role at our state-of-the-art HQ in Brooklyn, NY, and will involve occasional travel to customers or manufacturing partners.

RESPONSIBILITIES

In this role, you will build on and manage our ingredient safety and fulfillment strategy, ensuring we are a quality, reliable partner to our customers.  Working closely with scientists, customers, and suppliers, you will:

• Build a comprehensive safety and quality system to manage our contract manufacturing supply chain (e.g., contract fermentation, spray drying, blending and packaging) and ingredient fulfillment (warehousing/distribution), working with advisors to improve and execute on our standards

• Assess, onboard, and manage co-manufacturing partners, ensuring compliance with regulatory (e.g., FDA, AAFCO) and internal requirements (e.g., third-party safety certifications, ISO-22000, ISO-9001, FSSC 22000, SQF, BRC, etc.) for companion animal and human ingredient production

• Manage our end-to-end fulfillment practices, managing onboarding customers to our systems, documentation to meet their manufacturing needs, and day-to-day fulfillment operations through our network of supply chain partners

• Own preparing and submitting regulatory documentation, working with our advisors to understand the regulatory requirements to bring our products to market in different geographies and commercial segments

COMPETENCIES & QUALIFICATIONS

• Supremely well-organized, with a track record of effectively managing multiple complex projects against deadlines

• Experience understanding and utilizing technical information when making strategic and operational decisions

• Ability to effectively collaborate with a range of external and internal stakeholders, including customers, scientists, and suppliers

• Proficiency with one or more of the following in an ingredient manufacturing context: 

  • Regulatory and safety compliance, particularly feed (companion animal) and food-related (e.g. GMP, HACCP, GFSI, etc.)

  • Supply chain management (network of contract manufacturing partners) and fulfillment

  • Quality control or quality assurance

• 3-4+ years of work experience

Other attributes that are preferred but not required:

• Experience with safety and regulatory operations in the the companion animal space

• Experience in fermentation-focused operations

• Experience with negotiation and managing external commercial relationships

• Experience with project management

• Experience with or interest in sustainability, food manufacturing, microbial products, and/or the food system

Not sure you meet 100% of our qualifications? We encourage anyone who thinks they could excel here to apply, no matter their background, how they identify, or their professional background. Applicants will never be disqualified nor discriminated against by race, class, religion, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, age, veteran status, disability status, or criminal history.

OUR VALUES

• Solve from first principles

  • We have a deep-seated curiosity about the most important problems facing the business. Our nature is to dig deeply into their details, question assumptions, understand the smallest details, and to drive towards the best possible solution using these insights. This makes us very effective in crafting new solutions and operating in ambiguous circumstances.

• Collaborate with kindness

  • We are exceptionally low ego, and treat each other with respect, compassion, and humility. We hold one another to high standards, but do so while being deeply committed to each other’s wellbeing. We invest in each other’s growth, and are willing to engage in difficult conversations and deliver direct, constructive feedback when necessary. We are always willing to take the initiative in making something better, and to jump in and help others when they need it. This enables us to operate as one team, where ideas are valued by their merit and everyone matters.

• Be resourceful and resilient

  • We figure out how to make things work, and how to accomplish our goals regardless of what stands in the way. We’re keen to confront challenges together through proactive planning and scrappy methods, and we reliably depend on one another to do what we said we would. Importantly, when things do go wrong, we learn quickly from our missteps, adapt our approach, and push forward. This makes us fearless in pursuing lofty ambitions, and allows us to succeed by being highly capital efficient.

WHY JOIN KINGDOM SUPERCULTURES?

• Meaningful work: Bring Superculture ingredients that enable healthier living to the world, while building a fast-growing business and driving millions of dollars in new ingredient revenue. 

• Valued member of a high-performing team: Become a leader of a team that rewards high performance with advancement opportunities and greater responsibilities.

• Growth and learning: Lead Kingdom’s development of new manufacturing capabilities and operations that will challenge you to master commercial, technical, and operational issues alongside the team. You'll also have the opportunity to learn from and shape Kingdom’s commercial strategy, product development, and technical approach.

• Ownership and autonomy: Build-out Kingdom’s manufacturing capabilities and operations to support rapid scaling of our ingredients, a critical part of our business, with the mentorship and support of the Kingdom leadership team. 

COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS

We believe offering excellent compensation with transparency helps us build a world-class team. We anchor base compensation above-market for your role compared to similar companies (i.e. valuation, stage, industry, etc.). We then go above and beyond competitive compensation for equity stock options, as we want everyone to be aligned with our long-term success.

For this position, we are most actively considering candidates for a base salary range of $110,000-$140,000, depending on the candidate’s competencies and qualifications. This does not include the equity, which will be discussed during the interview process.

We also offer excellent benefits package including:

• 100% covered medical, vision, and dental insurance for yourself, and 90% for your spouse/family

• Unlimited PTO

• 12-weeks fully-paid, gender-neutral parental leave

• 401k retirement offering

• Commuter benefit options of subsidized Metrocards, free Citibike, free parking

• Office kitchen fully stocked with fruit, snacks, and beverages (including nitro cold brew coffee!)