What a Chief Operating Officer Does

The COO’s mandate varies by business structure, ownership type, and CEO preference — but the core accountabilities are consistent across every context. The COO owns the operational delivery of the business: managing the functional leadership team, driving performance against the operational plan, resolving cross-functional issues that individual directors cannot resolve at their level, and reporting to the board and CEO on operational performance with the commercial context that enables good decisions.

COO vs Operations Director vs Head of Operations vs Managing Director

Many of the briefs we receive start with one title and end with another. A founder asks for a COO when the business needs a strong Operations Director; a board asks for an Operations Director when the role it describes has cross-functional authority and a seat at the executive table. Getting the title right matters because it decides who will apply, what they will expect to be paid and how much authority they will assume they have on day one.

Two points come up repeatedly. First, the Managing Director title in UK owner-managed businesses often describes the most senior executive, not a peer of the COO, so a COO hire under an MD is common and works well when the split is written down. Second, a Head of Operations promoted to COO without the cross-functional remit usually remains a Head of Operations with a bigger title. If the role you have in mind is really one of the other three, we run those searches too: see Managing Director recruitment and our guide to Operations Director vs Head of Operations. For the CEO–COO split specifically, our guide to the difference between a CEO and a COO sets out how the two roles divide the work.

Permanent, Interim, or Fractional COO: Which Model Is Right

Permanent COO — appropriate where the business needs sustained operational leadership across multiple years. The permanent COO will build the operational infrastructure, develop the management team, embed the operational culture, and own the operational strategy across multiple growth cycles. The timetable for a permanent COO search is agreed at briefing; once candidates’ notice periods are included, most permanent appointments take a few months from instruction to start date.

Interim COO — appropriate for defined-period operational leadership: covering an unplanned departure, managing the operational workstream of a transaction or PE investment, leading an operational turnaround, or bridging while the permanent search is conducted carefully rather than under time pressure. See our Interim COO page for urgent requirements; interim operators are usually available at much shorter notice than permanent candidates.

Fractional COO — appropriate for businesses that need COO-level operational thinking and cross-functional authority on a defined-day basis without the scale to justify a full-time appointment. Typically one to three days per week on an ongoing basis. Most appropriate for smaller and growth-stage businesses where the operational complexity is real but does not yet require a full-time executive. See our Fractional COO page.

COO for Private Equity — PE-backed businesses have specific requirements for the COO appointment: PE governance experience, 100-day plan discipline, structured reporting, and a working relationship with the operating partner alongside the CEO. Exec Capital has an active network of COOs with PE portfolio track records across multiple sectors. See our private equity recruitment capability.

Comparing the four ways to hire a COO

Other ways to hire a COO. This page covers permanent COO recruitment. If you need operational leadership for a few days a week, start with our fractional COO service, which is the most common route for founder-led and early-stage businesses. A part-time COO suits businesses that want a fixed reduced schedule, and an interim COO covers a defined period at short notice. Many clients use an interim or fractional COO first and then convert the role, or run a permanent search once the shape of the job is clear. For private equity portfolio companies, see portfolio company COO recruitment; for FCA-regulated firms that need an approved SMF24, see COO of a regulated firm.

COO by Context

The COO title covers very different jobs depending on where it sits. A COO who has been excellent in a venture-backed software business may struggle in a forty-site leisure operator, and the reverse is just as true. We brief and search by context first and by sector second, because the operating problems a COO must solve are shaped more by the business model and ownership than by the industry label. These are the contexts we see most often.

Scale-up and venture-backed businesses

The first COO in a scale-up is usually hired because the founder or CEO has become the bottleneck for every operational decision. The job is to build the operating system of the business: planning cadence, KPIs, a management team that can run without the founder in the room, and the processes and tools that will hold at two or three times the current size. The right candidate has built that system before, in a business that went through the same stage, and is comfortable working with an investor board and a founder who still wants to be close to the product. The risk is hiring someone from a large company who has only ever run a mature operating model and has never had to design one. See our scale-up executive recruitment work for related hires.

Multi-site, consumer and leisure operators

In multi-site businesses — leisure, gyms, hospitality, retail, care and similar — the COO owns the estate: site performance, labour scheduling and cost, standards, health and safety, openings and closures, and the regional management layer. The best candidates can read a site league table, know what drives the variance between the best and worst sites, and have built a field team that holds standards without constant head-office intervention. Operations leadership is one of our most active areas in this space, including a current Head of Operations search for a multi-site leisure group, and we see the same pattern in COO briefs: the business has grown by adding sites faster than it has built the systems and people to run them consistently. Our leisure and hospitality executive recruitment page covers the wider leadership team.

Manufacturing and industrial businesses

A manufacturing COO is accountable for safety, quality, delivery and cost in that order, and for the capital plan that keeps the plant competitive. Candidates need credible experience of lean or continuous-improvement programmes, S&OP, supplier and procurement management, and the industrial relations that come with a large shop-floor workforce. In owner-managed manufacturers the COO is often the first senior hire from outside the family or founding team, which makes cultural fit and the relationship with the owner as important as technical depth. See our manufacturing executive recruitment practice.

Private equity-backed businesses

In a PE-backed business the COO is often the executive who delivers the operational half of the investment case: margin improvement, procurement savings, integration of bolt-on acquisitions, systems upgrades and the reporting discipline that monthly board packs and lender covenants require. The candidate must work at the pace of a hold period, report in the format the investor expects and build a constructive relationship with the operating partner as well as the CEO. Our dedicated pages for private equity COO recruitment and portfolio company hires cover this in more depth.

Regulated financial services (SMF24)

In banks, insurers and other larger regulated firms, the person responsible for internal operations and technology may hold the Chief Operations function, SMF24, which is a senior manager function under the Senior Managers and Certification Regime. The FCA’s specification of senior management functions is set out in SUP 10C.4 of the FCA Handbook. SMF24 holders need regulatory approval before they take up the role, so the search has to allow for the approval application, regulatory references and criminal record checks alongside the candidate’s notice period. The FCA’s October 2026 consultation on further SMCR reform (CP26/37) proposes moving several board-level functions to a notification basis, but proposes keeping SMF24 subject to pre-approval because of the operational risks the function covers. Candidates need a track record of operational resilience, outsourcing and third-party risk, and technology change in a regulated setting. For these searches see COO of a regulated firm recruitment and our SMF24 hiring guide. Firms that also need fractional SMF16 compliance oversight or SMF17 MLRO cover can ask us about both at briefing.

Family offices and owner-managed groups

Family office and owner-managed group COOs sit close to the principal and often cover operations, people, technology, property and governance in a single role. Discretion, judgement about family dynamics and the ability to work without a large support team matter as much as operational depth. See family office COO recruitment.

How We Assess Operators

Operational experience is easy to describe and hard to verify. Almost every COO candidate will say they have improved processes, implemented systems and built teams. Our assessment is designed to separate the operators who did those things from those who were in the room while they happened. We assess five areas, weighted to the brief, and we ask for evidence — numbers, decisions, sequence and what went wrong — rather than descriptions.

1. Process

We ask candidates to walk through an operating process they redesigned: what the baseline was, how they measured it, what they changed first and why, and what the result was six and twelve months later. Strong operators talk about flow, bottlenecks, handoffs and the people who run the process each day. Weak answers stay at the level of frameworks and programme names. For businesses with a lean, quality or continuous-improvement culture we test whether the candidate has embedded it, not just introduced it.

2. Systems

Most COO roles now include ownership of, or heavy involvement in, an ERP, CRM, workforce management or data platform change. We test whether the candidate has led a system implementation from business case to adoption, how they handled the vendor and the internal team, and what they would do differently. A COO does not need to be a technologist, but they must be able to own a technology-enabled change and work as an equal with the CTO or IT lead.

3. People

The COO usually inherits a management team and is judged on what that team delivers. We look for evidence that the candidate has assessed a team honestly, moved people who were not working, hired well, and developed managers who went on to bigger roles. Referencing with former direct reports, not only former bosses, is part of this. We also test how the candidate works with the CEO: how they handle disagreement, how they keep the CEO informed without escalating everything, and how they behave when the boundary between the two roles is unclear.

4. P&L

A COO who cannot connect operational decisions to margin and cash is an operations manager with a senior title. We test commercial and financial literacy directly: how the candidate built and managed a cost base, how they treated labour as a variable cost, how they made the case for capital expenditure, and how they reported operational performance to a board or investor. In PE-backed and lender-funded businesses we test familiarity with covenant reporting, cash conversion and working capital, which is where the COO and the CFO must work closely together.

5. Integration

Many COO mandates involve bringing things together: an acquisition, a merger of two sites or teams, a move to a shared service or a new operating model. We ask candidates to describe an integration they led, including the first hundred days, the decisions they had to take on people and systems, and what they would sequence differently. Integration experience is often the single most valuable differentiator in buy-and-build and post-merger situations, and our guide to post-acquisition senior team integration sets out what boards should expect.

Alongside the five areas, we assess motivation and fit for the specific situation: why this role, why now, and whether the candidate’s preferred way of working matches the CEO they would work with. Our referencing is structured around the same five areas, so the shortlist report shows you where each candidate is strong, where they would need support and where we see risk.

COO vs Managing Director: The Distinction

In UK businesses these titles are sometimes used interchangeably, and the distinction matters for brief definition and candidate selection. A Managing Director typically carries P&L accountability for the business or a specific division — they are accountable for the commercial outcomes of the entity they lead, not just its operational delivery. In group structures, subsidiary MDs report to a Group CEO while the Group COO manages operational performance across the portfolio. A COO in most structures is accountable specifically for operational delivery — cross-functional execution, process management, cost efficiency, and management team performance — while the CEO or MD retains the P&L ownership and the primary external relationships.

In practice, many businesses use MD and COO interchangeably for the most senior operational executive below the CEO. Exec Capital advises on which designation is appropriate for each specific mandate and business structure and places interim and permanent executives across both. See our Managing Director Recruitment page.

What a COO Typically Delivers in the First 90 Days

The first ninety days decide whether a new COO gains the authority the role needs. We encourage clients to agree a written 90-day plan with the COO before the start date, and we use the same structure when we brief candidates at final interview. It usually falls into three phases.

Days 1–30: listen, diagnose and secure the basics

• One-to-one meetings with every member of the management team, key customers and suppliers, and the chair or investor.
• A review of the operating KPIs: what is measured, what is trusted, and what is missing.
• Site, plant or front-line visits to see how work is actually done, not how it is described.
• Any urgent safety, compliance, service or cash issues dealt with immediately.
• Agreement with the CEO on decision rights: what the COO owns, what they recommend and what stays with the CEO.

Days 31–60: priorities and the operating rhythm

• A short written diagnosis shared with the CEO and board: the three to five issues that matter most and why.
• A weekly and monthly operating cadence, with a KPI pack the management team owns.
• An honest assessment of each direct report, with development plans or changes where needed.
• Early, visible improvements in one or two areas that the team can see are working.

Days 61–90: the operating plan

• A twelve-month operating plan aligned to the budget and, in PE-backed businesses, to the value creation plan.
• Business cases for any systems, capital or structural changes that need board approval.
• Clear accountabilities across the management team, with the COO’s role in board reporting settled.
• A first review with the CEO of how the working relationship is going and what needs to change.

A COO who arrives with a plan already written, before they have listened, is a warning sign; so is one who is still only listening at day ninety. Our executive onboarding guide covers the board’s side of a successful start, and the COO job description sets out the full scope of the role.

Engagement and Fees

We agree the commercial basis of every search in writing before work starts. How we charge depends on the type of appointment.

A retained COO search includes the brief and candidate profile, market research and direct approaches, structured interviews and written shortlist assessments, interview support, referencing, offer negotiation and contact through onboarding. For a fuller explanation of the two permanent models, see our guide to retained vs contingent executive search.

Interim and fractional COOs may work through their own limited company. Where they do, the client usually needs to consider the off-payroll working rules; HMRC’s guidance on understanding off-payroll working (IR35) explains who is responsible for the status determination. We discuss this at briefing so the engagement is set up correctly from the start.

Who We Place COOs For

Our COO clients are typically founders and CEOs of growing businesses, chairs and boards of owner-managed and family companies, and private equity investors and operating partners appointing into portfolio companies. Sectors include technology and software, business services, consumer and leisure, multi-site retail and hospitality, manufacturing and industrial, logistics, healthcare services and FCA-regulated financial services. We place COOs across the UK and for international businesses building or restructuring a UK operation.

Looking for a COO role yourself? If you are an experienced operator, please register with us and see our current opportunities. We only contact candidates about roles that match their experience.