Director of Operations
Location: Nashville, TN metro (on-site)
Reports To: President
Compensation: $130,000–$160,000 base, depending on experience, plus bonus, equity and benefits
Search: Confidential, client name disclosed upon mutual interest
About the Client
The company is a specialty distribution business in the Nashville metro. It buys excess, returned, and obsolete power tools and accessories and resells them to cost-conscious buyers, operating out of a single large warehouse.
Inventory is sourced through OEM, distributor, and retailer relationships, along with opportunistic truckload buys and auctions, and moves back out through wholesale and e-commerce channels. The plan is to broaden the sourcing base and shift the sales mix from wholesale truckloads toward selling individual units directly to DIY customers and contractors through the company's website.
The business is backed by a private equity firm running a playbook it has already executed successfully in industrial surplus, and is held as a long-term investment rather than a quick flip. The management team is being built from scratch: a President joined recently as the first hire, and this role and a VP of Finance are the next two.
About the Role
Our client is hiring its first Director of Operations to own the physical business: everything that happens from the moment a truck backs into the dock to the moment a unit ships out. Today that means intake, sorting, grading, inventory entry, inventory management, e-commerce fulfillment, and wholesale fulfillment, with no standard operating procedures and no operations manager in place.
You will build the operation while running it. That means writing the SOPs, implementing a warehouse management system, hiring or developing team leads out of the existing warehouse crew, and re-engineering the workflow as the business shifts from shipping truckloads to picking and packing individual units. You start hands-on and close to the floor. Within a year, expect a department of roughly 20 to 25 people with managers reporting to you.
The Operating Problem
Worth being explicit about the challenge, because it defines the job:
- Inbound is unpredictable. This is not traditional distribution where you order what you need. An OEM or retailer tells us they have 10 trucks coming next week and we figure it out. Volume is lumpy by nature.
- The SKU base is enormous and messy. Multiple brands, multiple model years, tools and accessories, in mixed condition requiring grading at intake.
- The business model is changing underneath you. Today a truck comes in and a truck goes out. The future is breaking those trucks into individual units, picked, packed, and shipped one at a time.
- Nothing is written down yet. The crew is capable but has been reporting to the prior owner without job descriptions, defined roles, or documented process.
Responsibilities
Run the Operation
- Own intake, sorting, grading, and inventory entry for all inbound freight
- Own inventory management, accuracy, cycle counting, and warehouse organization across a high-SKU catalog
- Own outbound fulfillment for both wholesale truckload shipments and e-commerce orders
- Hold the operation to daily throughput, accuracy, and cost-per-unit targets you help define
Build the Operation
- Write the standard operating procedures for every step of the flow, and train the team to them
- Implement and administer the warehouse management system, including bin logic, SKU structure, and labeling
- Design the pick, pack, and ship capability required to move from truckload sales to individual-unit e-commerce
- Partner with the VP of Finance on inventory costing, valuation, and the operating KPIs the business will run on
- Lay out the warehouse for the volume and mix we expect, not the one we have today
Build the Team
- Take over direct leadership of the existing warehouse crew, who currently have no formal reporting structure
- Define roles and job descriptions; identify and elevate the people already stepping up into team lead positions
- Grow into leading a department of roughly 20 to 25 people through a layer of managers
- Set the standard for attendance, safety, and accountability, and earn the respect of a blue-collar workforce by being on the floor
Requirements
Must-Haves
- Roughly 10+ years of total professional experience
- Several years of hands-on distribution, warehouse, or fulfillment operations experience. This is not teachable on the job here
- Real inventory management depth: bin logic, SKU management, cycle counting, receiving and putaway, shrink control
- Experience operating and ideally implementing a warehouse management system. We care that you understand how these systems work, not which brand you used
- Proven experience leading and developing hourly teams
- Willingness to be on-site and on the floor daily
- Based in or willing to relocate to the Nashville area
Nice-to-Haves
- Industrial distribution background. Experience at a large, well-regarded company (e.g., Fastenal, Grainger, Ferguson) is a bonus, not a requirement
- Experience in an e-commerce distribution center, particularly one doing high-mix piece picking
- A path that runs from a large, well-run operation into a smaller business, where you had to apply the fundamentals without the corporate infrastructure behind you
- Experience standing up SOPs or launching a new facility, line, or process from scratch
- Military leadership background
Why This Role
- You own the operation outright and build it the way you think it should be built
- Clear runway: this role is scoped as a Director today with room to grow into VP of Operations across multiple sites as the platform expands
- Work directly with a President who is in the building every day and a sponsor that has run this playbook before
- Simple, cash-generative business with a long-term owner and a real growth thesis
- A product people actually enjoy: tradespeople walk the warehouse and get genuinely excited