Senior Manager, Operations Infrastructure

Senior Manager, Operations Infrastructure
Location: Nine Elms, London | Full-time

Zapp is London's leading premium convenience retail platform. Founded in 2020, our vision is to disrupt the multi-trillion-dollar convenience retail market, currently dominated by major players, by developing best-in-class customer-centric technology and fulfilment solutions. Zapp partners with some of the world's leading brands to deliver an exclusive range of hand-picked products 24/7.

The Role

We are looking for a Senior Manager, Operations Infrastructure to build and run the physical and compliance infrastructure behind our London Fulfilment Centres (FCs). Our range includes chilled and frozen food, alcohol, tobacco, vapes, nicotine products and over-the-counter medicines, delivered in minutes, so every site has to be safe, working and compliant on every order, not just at inspection time.

You will structure how facilities works at Zapp, manage our third-party vendors to clear SLAs, own the facilities budget, hold the quality and compliance framework, and lead the site launches, relocations and improvement projects that let our network grow. You will line-manage a small hands-on facilities team; this is a leadership and project role.

You will report to the Director, Operations and work daily with FC Managers, landlords, contractors, regulators.

Build and run the facilities function

• Design and run the facilities operating model: ticketing and prioritisation, a planned preventive maintenance schedule, response SLAs by fault type, and weekly reporting on open items, compliance actions, spend and vendor performance

• Set the standard for how an FC should look, feel and operate, and hold sites and vendors to it through regular inspections and closed-out punch lists

• Line-manage the facilities team: set priorities, develop their capability, and delegate hands-on repairs and general maintenance to the team and to contractors

Manage vendors, SLAs and budget

• Manage third-party vendors (refrigeration, waste, pest control, utilities, security, cleaning, food safety and construction) to contracted scope, quality, timelines and cost

• Review, consolidate and renegotiate service contracts to improve service and cost, and run procurement of equipment for FC use

• Own the facilities budget: forecast, track and control expenditure, verify invoices against contracts and quotes, and drive down unplanned repair and call-out spend

Own quality and compliance

• Build and maintain the quality and compliance framework across all sites: food safety and HACCP, age-restricted sales and alcohol licensing, health and safety, and fire

• Keep every FC compliant and audit-ready, with certification, risk assessments, training records and documentation current, and act as the point of contact for regulators and local authorities

• Use complaint, defect and audit data to find root causes and show improvement in the numbers

Lead site launch and improvement projects

• Lead new FC openings and relocations from lease signature to trading: fit-out coordination, commissioning, snagging, equipment, and compliance sign-off (food business registration, alcohol licence, health and safety and fire) before handover to the FC Manager, on time and to budget

• Lead improvement projects across the network (cold-room expansion, equipment refresh and modernisation, FC standards programme) from business case through to completion, bringing in IT, Supply Chain, Data and external partners as needed

• Build and maintain the site-launch playbook so that each opening is faster and more predictable than the last

Requirements

Essential

• Background in project management, engineering, construction management or operations consulting, with a track record of delivering physical or multi-site projects from conception to completion

• Strong strategic and organisational skills: you design a process, set an SLA, build a budget and hold people to it, rather than fixing the problem yourself

• Demonstrable experience managing third-party vendors and budgets environment, with clear evidence of improving service and maintaning cost

• Experience leading a small team and working through others, including trade or technical staff, contractors and third-party partners

• Confident with data: you define KPIs, use them to find root causes and show improvement in the numbers

• Clear communicator who can brief contractors, work directly with regulators, align cross-functional stakeholders and give concise updates to senior leadership

• Comfortable in a fast-paced scale-up where processes are still being built and priorities change

Benefits

• Competitive salary

• 25 days of holiday per year (plus all bank holidays)

• Zapp credit for testing the Zapp service and experience

• Private health insurance

• Extended sick pay and maternity and paternity leave pay

• Cycle to work scheme

• Flexible and hybrid working arrangement

• Lunch provided four days a week at HQ