Chief Operations Officer - PE backed MSP Buy-Build

Recruiter

Independence Capital ("IC") are a hybrid private equity & advisory firm specialising in seeding new buy-build strategies. IC provide a management-friendly alternative to legacy private equity for three types of teams and leaders:

• Enabling teams and leaders who have recently exited and who wish to utilise that experience on a similar buy-build but where they retain control
• Enabling teams and leaders from within a best-in-class corporate who wish to utilise that experience to build a new group where they retain control
• Enabling second-line management in high performing SME to buy-out their incumbent majority shareholder

IC thesis is to acquire £2m to £15m turnover assets off-market and to aggregate them to an ultimate exit-scale of c£7-10m EBITDA (across a 3-5yr time horizon) before dual-track an exit process to Trade or Private Equity.

Company

• A national IT Managed Services provider has been built with the support of a team who have already scaled and exited in the sector before.
• The group has conducted 8 acqusitions and made good progress in integrating and readying the business for its next phase of scale.
• The operations span four sites accross the North West, Midlands and South, with a workforce that now exceeds 130.
• The product suite spans IT support, Microsoft Modern Workplace, Public/Private/Hybrid Cloud Solutions, Infrastructure-as-a-service & cybersecurity.
• The customer profile ranges from SME owner-managed business through to PE-backed and global blue-chips.

Role

• The role is a replacement for one of the founders, who is moving into a strategic/consulting role ahead of planning for exit of the group to private equity or trade.
• The role will afford the candidate two critical opportunities 1) to support preparations for scale and excellence ahead of delivering a successful exit 2) to position themselves as leading the next generation through the companies next phase of growth post-exit.
• Key areas of responsibility are to include; all People Operations, all Service Operations (including client Projects) and support the incumbent in the delivery of ongoing Transformation & Integration workstreams.

Requirements

• Minimum 10-years senior leadership experience in IT Services Operations
• Experience of having worked in groups conducting M&A is critical
• Experience of having lead Transformation & Integration Programmes is critical
• Experience of leading in businesses with teams of 200-500+ is critical
• Previous experience of having worked under private equity is preferred but not a necessity
• Previous experience of having exited is preferred but not a necessity
• Location is not seen as a critical barrier to any hire but regular travel between the various sites is expected
• Exceptional candidates in second-tier roles (Directors/Head of X) yet to take on a full COO role would be considered but will need to evidence an ability to design and execute exceptional People, Customer or Technology outcomes