Business Operations Manager

Business Operations Manager

MAMAWEST ~ Footscray, Melbourne ~ Full Time

The Opportunity

We're looking for an exceptional Business Operations Manager to become the operational leader behind MAMAWEST.

We're looking for someone who has led high-performing teams, understands commercial performance, loves creating exceptional customer experiences and knows how to turn vision into action! *Did someone say spreadsheet?*

You may come from premium retail, luxury hospitality, wellness or another customer-first environment. You may have built your career with brands like MECCA, Aesop, Apple, Lululemon, Sephora or Country Road.

Hairdressing experience is NOT required. Retail leadership experience is essential.

As our Business Operations Manager, you'll work directly alongside our Founder & Education manager & Performance manager, taking ownership of the day-to-day operational health and performance of the business.

The Founder sets the vision and direction. You'll create the structure, accountability and execution required to achieve it.

About MAMAWEST

MAMAWEST is a multi award-winning creative business based in Melbourne's inner west.

We're known for creativity, education, inclusivity and delivering an exceptional client experience.

But we're building much more than 'just' a business. We're in our legacy piece re writing how things are done in our industry.

MAMAWEST continues to grow nationally across education, content, creative partnerships and industry opportunities, and we're looking for an experienced operator who can help build the business behind the brand.

What You'll Own

Your role sits across five key areas:

1. Business Performance

You'll understand the numbers behind the business and use them to drive better decisions.

You'll:

• Own our daily, weekly and monthly business performance dashboard.

• Monitor revenue, profitability, wages, productivity, retail and cost of goods.

• Track performance against budgets and targets.

• Forecast sales and identify risks and opportunities early.

• Analyse performance and turn insights into clear actions.

• Identify opportunities to reduce costs and improve profitability ^^^^.

• Work closely with the Founder and our financial partners on budgets and business performance.

You should always be able to tell us:

Where are we? Why are we there? Where are we heading? And what are we doing about it?

2. People & Performance

You'll lead, support and develop a high-performing team while creating a culture of accountability, care and continuous improvement.

You'll:

• Lead regular one-on-ones and performance conversations.

• Set and monitor individual and team KPIs.

• Coach team members around productivity, retail, rebooking and client retention.

• Create career development and performance plans.

• Manage performance issues and difficult conversations when required.

• Support recruitment, onboarding and workforce planning.

• Monitor annual leave, sick leave, TIL and overtime.

• Lead team meetings and communication.

• Develop future leaders within the business.

• Create an environment where people feel supported while understanding exactly what's expected of them.

We want someone who can balance high standards with genuine care for people. LEADERSHIP is our strong suit!

3. Client Experience & Retail

Client experience is at the heart of MAMAWEST.

You'll take ownership of the entire client journey and continually look for ways to make it better!

You'll:

• Monitor client satisfaction, feedback and reviews. Implenting better systems to capture, just that.

• Track client retention, rebooking, cancellations and lost clients.

• Oversee high-level complaints and service recovery.

• Identify opportunities to elevate every client touchpoint.

• Maintain premium presentation and service standards.

• Develop strategies to strengthen client loyalty and retention.

Retail

Retail experience is essential for this role.

You'll build a strong retail culture based on education, trust and genuine client care rather than transactional selling.

You'll oversee:

• Retail KPIs and growth.

• Team retail coaching.

• Product performance.

• Visual merchandising.

• Inventory and stock forecasting.

• Supplier relationships.

• Retail promotions and opportunities.

4. Operations

You'll create the systems and structure that allow MAMAWEST to run efficiently without constant firefighting.

You'll:

• Oversee day-to-day business operations.

• Build and improve systems, processes and SOPs ~ this is critical to the piece!

• Identify inefficiencies and operational bottlenecks.

• Manage rostering and capacity planning.

• Oversee & renegotiate suppliers, contractors and operational relationships.

• Manage inventory, stock expenditure and wastage.

• Oversee facilities, maintenance and equipment.

• Maintain operational and workplace compliance.

• Ensure projects, meetings and actions are followed through.

• Identify opportunities to use technology, AI and automation to work smarter, not harder. But still be a human with your own beautiful brain and not solely rely on such. Plz & Thank you.

Your mindset should constantly be:

How can we make this simpler, smarter and better?

5. Growth & Continuous Improvement

We're not looking for someone to simply maintain what's already here.

We want someone who helps us build what's next.

You'll work alongside our Founder to:

• Translate business goals into operational plans.

• Lead quarterly business improvement projects.

• Identify new efficiencies and commercial opportunities.

• Support the delivery of education, events, partnerships and new initiatives.

• Build scalable systems for future growth.

• Manage projects from idea through to execution!!!!

• Measure results and continuously improve.

• Bring ideas and solutions to the table.

We don't want someone who waits to ask:

"What do you need me to do?"

We want someone who comes to us saying:

"Here's what I'm seeing. Here's what I think we should do."

About You

You're an experienced operator who loves both people and performance.

You're commercially minded, highly organised and naturally take ownership.

You notice when something isn't working and your instinct is to understand why and fix it~

You're comfortable moving between a financial report, a performance conversation, a client issue and a strategic planning meeting.

You communicate clearly.

You follow through.

You don't need to be chased.

And you genuinely enjoy making businesses better! AN Intrepeneur!

What You'll Bring

• Proven experience in operations, business management or senior retail leadership.

• Strong premium retail experience — essential.

• Experience leading and developing high-performing teams.

• Strong commercial and financial acumen.

• Confidence interpreting sales reports, budgets and KPIs.

• Experience managing labour and productivity.

• Excellent organisational and project-management skills.

• Strong communication and emotional intelligence.

• Confidence managing conflict and performance conversations.

• Experience improving systems and operational efficiency.

• Strong technology skills and the ability to learn new platforms quickly.

• A genuine passion for exceptional customer experience.

• Ability to create systems and processes which is critical to the role. If you don't know what an SOP is, this might not be for you.

Hairdressing experience is not required.

In fact, we're excited about what someone from outside our industry could bring to MAMAWEST.

Show us the CV...

You may have built your career with brands such as MECCA, Aesop, Apple, Lululemon, Sephora, Country Road Group, David Jones, luxury hospitality, premium wellness, fitness or another high-performing customer experience brand.

What matters to us is the standard you've worked at and the leadership, commercial discipline and customer experience thinking you can bring with you.

What does success look like?You'll know you're succeeding when:

• The business consistently achieves its financial and operational targets.

• Our team understands their goals and is supported to achieve them.

• Retail performance grows.

• Productivity and utilisation improve.

• Client retention and loyalty strengthen.

• Operational problems are identified before they become major problems.

• Systems become simpler and more effective.

• Business priorities actually get executed.

• The Founder has greater capacity to focus on brand, creativity, education, partnerships and future growth! ^^

Ultimately, your role is to make MAMAWEST stronger every month.

Why MAMAWEST?

This is an opportunity to have genuine influence inside an ambitious, independent and creative business.

You'll work directly with our Founder, have the autonomy to improve how we operate and play a significant role in shaping the next chapter of MAMAWEST.

We're not looking for someone to simply keep things running.

We're looking for someone who wants to help us build something EXCEPTIONAL

If that sounds like you, we'd love to hear from you.

Please send us your CV and a short cover letter telling us about a business you've improved, a team you've developed and the impact you made.