At Organically Grown Company our mission is simple: To actively cultivate a diverse, sustainable and engaged organic trade from farm to marketplace. It’s through this mission that we continue to pursue our vision of an equitable and regenerative organic agricultural system for global health. As of 2018, we are owned by a Perpetual Purpose Trust, whose main purpose is not to extract a profit, but rather to help OGC and other like-minded businesses fulfill our mission – serving sustainable food and agriculture communities.
The organic produce industry is not for the faint of heart. We work really hard each and every day to bring the best organic produce into markets and homes from hundreds of awesome farms. We look for people who share our passion for organic agriculture and sustainable business practices; who value teamwork, candor, transparency and an egalitarian workplace; and who engage others with joy and gratitude. Our products are “just in time,” need careful handling, and change by the season. Our coworkers embrace that challenge and strive to provide exceptional customer experiences while in pursuit of operational excellence. We do all this with gratitude, integrity, collaboration, resiliency and grit. We believe in doing things a little differently here at OGC, and living our values authentically.
THE POSITION:
Reporting to the CEO, OGC seeks a Vice President of Business Operations & Innovation/General Manager. The VP of Business Operations & Innovation/General Manager is responsible for a range of impactful, highly strategic work partnering with Inventory Maintenance, Quality Assurance, Operations, Transportation and Human Resources departments and the Executive and Leadership Teams. This position will serve as a key leader in helping teams identify, scope, craft and tackle the highest priority strategic initiatives to improve internal and external service, effectiveness, and efficiency. The VP plays a critical role in creating vision and planning processes that drive highly impactful, cross-functional, innovation and growth. While the work is primarily responsible for internal teams, systems and processes, partnership and leadership in assessing, planning and executing a broad range of business development activities will be critical.
Successful leaders at OGC are humble, lifelong learners who are excellent listeners and teachers, and value deep, authentic collaboration with the cross-functional team. They are motivated to be the CEO’s of their business areas, and are able to both set vision and simultaneously roll up their sleeves to partner, teach, and model how to obtain results. They must be able to demonstrate and coach teams in effective problem understanding and solution creation/implementation, be creative out-of-the box thinkers, and above all value mentoring and empowering coworkers at all levels. They believe that their own success is measured not by personal accomplishment, but by how their team is growing contributing, both as individuals and as a whole. They are innovators and change agents, who prioritize achievement and continuous improvement for growth that is grounded in data, analytics and holistic root cause understanding.
An ideal candidate has a demonstrated natural curiosity and passion for learning and truly believes that change happens through developing deep understanding, and building strong detailed systems-based understanding and interpersonal relationships. This candidate embraces complexity, and has a healthy dose of patience and polite persistence built into the way they operate along with striving to have fun, work hard, share grace, and actively demonstrate grit and gratitude. Resilience, positivity, and creative, inclusive problem solving are core to the way the ideal candidate operates. Demonstrated experience scaling an organization and leading change effectively is vital.
A Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience with 8-10 years of related work experience with track record of consistently achieving exceeding company objectives, or overall equivalent experience is required. Experience in a role that is people, data, and communications intensive is required. The ideal candidate is an experienced leader in business operations with P&L responsibilities in the produce and/or perishable industry. Previous experience in food retail, on farm and agriculture management, highly perishable food production or manufacturing is required.
Must have demonstrated experience in creating vision for and driving successful project implementation of core process improvements within a high volume supply chain, logistics or distribution environment, as well as a track record of teaching, mentoring, and leading high performance teams, delivering exceptional customer service, and effectively developing and managing budgets.
Must have experience using inventory, operational, warehouse, transportation management and people systems software (e.g., ERP, WMS, TMS, HRIS, etc.) and the ability to train others on the Company computer software program; or must have the computer skills necessary to learn and use a variety of computer software programs. CDL/direct experience in transportation and Lean Six Sigma experience a plus.
