Operations Manager, Sessions
£45-55k
+ Bonus + Share Options
3+ days a week in office (Victoria Station, London)
Licensing and franchising of founder led food brands
Posted today
Licensing and franchising of founder led food brands
101-200 employees
Posted today
£45-55k
+ Bonus + Share Options
3+ days a week in office (Victoria Station, London)
101-200 employees
Company mission
Bridging non-stop originality for every kitchen.
Role
Who you are
- Process Ownership: highly organised, with a strength in process and procedure — builds and continuously improves repeatable systems, not just follows them
- Cross-Functional Influence: delivers through teams that don't report to them
- People Management: has line-managed and developed a direct report
- Hands-On: comfortable in the operational detail, not just directing from above
- Data and Hypothesis-Led: uses data and hypotheses to proactively spot issues before they surface, blending on-the-ground insight with what the data is showing to drive decision-making
- Sector Experience: food, hospitality or QSR background valuable as context — ideally kitchen-to-corporate or hospitality experience
- Strong communicator, able to build rapport and resolve conflict
- Willing to travel to host sites; based in the London office
- Ambitious, with a drive to join a fast-paced, high-growth company
- Delivery platform experience preferred but not essential
- Charismatic and energetic, with a passion for food
- Expert English and right to work in the UK
What the job involves
- As our New Brands Operations Manager, you’ll own the process that decides which brands earn a permanent place in the Sessions network — the single biggest point of leverage in how well New Brands scales
- The team is in growth mode, aiming to increase the volume of brands we work with from 12 a year to 20. As volume increases, the key skill is understanding trade-offs — knowing where to spend time versus not, and what to prioritise
- You’ll work cross-functionally across Studio, Supply Chain and Growth, making sure we’re working towards outcomes rather than just tasks. You’ll also line manage our Validation Trainer, who leads the majority of on-site training and floor management for validation launches. It’s a hands-on role: structured enough to scale, detailed enough to get into host kitchens when needed
- Identify the right sites for validation and ensure kitchens are launch-ready
- Provide support at escalation level for host sites or in the absence of the New Brand Trainer who will be the primary point of contact day to day
- Conduct regular site visits to assess performance and provide feedback
- Build and maintain strong relationships with Brand Founders as well as delivery platforms
- Work closely with various internal teams at Sessions to give the brands the best possible chance of succeeding within the validation period
- Own the end-to-end validation process, driving it against clear timelines and holding pace as volumes increase
- Own KPI monitoring and reporting across validation, and run the review process that decides what interventions are needed and which brands progress
- Build and maintain scalable systems, templates and playbooks so the process holds up as volume grows toward c.20 brands a year
- Prioritise across the full portfolio of brands in validation, deciding where time and resource should be spent as volumes increase, and why
- Maintain live visibility of the validation pipeline, so issues within any brand's validation are caught and diagnosed quickly rather than surfacing late
- Work and collaborate with Studio, Supply Chain and Growth so validation's needs are reflected in their planning
- Understand constraints and capacity within each team, and where resource is best spent and which brands are prioritised
- Draw on the expertise other teams bring, while still owning the decisions and driving validation towards clear outcomes
- Once a brand has been validated, coordinate with the relevant downstream teams — including UKI — to set both the brand and those teams up for success
- Take a proactive, hypothesis-led approach to validation: capture insight from each brand's pre- and post-validation stages and apply it earlier in the next one, so problems are caught before a brand goes live rather than after
- Draw on insight from the broader Sessions estate — brands already live and scaling — to identify where validation itself can improve
- Build AI-enabled reporting tools that turn validation data into structured, comparable analysis, so each brand's learnings become part of a growing, repeatable body of knowledge rather than one-off analysis
- Directly manage and line-lead the New Brands Trainer, setting clear operational priorities and managing workload across brand rollouts
- Support ongoing professional development, career growth, and skills enhancement for direct reports
- Lead recruitment and onboarding efforts as team requirements scale
- Oversee performance management and evaluation to maintain high standards of execution across validation sites
Application process
- We usually respond within a week
- Contact: Emma Pedroz
Salary benchmarks
Our take
The traditional food industry can struggle with innovation and bringing new concepts to consumers. Scaling these concepts and maintaining consistent quality across locations can be another hurdle.
Led by former executives from Deliveroo, Brew Dogg, and Soho House, Sessions tackles this problem by acting as a launchpad for exciting new food brands. Considered 'the record label of food' it leverages expertise in technology, branding, and franchise operations to help brands flourish. This includes everything from initial concept development to partnering with existing kitchens to fulfil orders.
With a brand portfolio that includes UK crowd favourites, Sobe Burger, Little Bao Boy, and Kenny Tutt's Patty Guy, Sessions is focused on becoming the go-to platform for innovative food experiences.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
Company
Funding (2 rounds)
Oct 2023
$4.4m
EARLY VC
Jan 2022
$10m
SERIES A
Total funding: $14.4m
Company benefits
- Monthly commission (sales roles only)
- Work from home opportunities
- Pension
- Wear what you like dress code!
- Paid after work socials
- £2,000 employee referral scheme
- Paid volunteer days
- Employee Assistance Programme
- Bonus Scheme
- Potential for Share Options in some roles
- 25 days holiday (excl. bank holidays)
- Health & Dental Benefit - Virtual GP
- Financial Benefits via Mintago
Company values
- Data-Led
- Ambitious
- Agile
- Fun
Company HQ
Belgravia, London, UK
Leadership
Dan Warne
(CEO)Director of Warne Consulting (for tech and hospitality sectors) and former Managing Director at Deliveroo.
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