Business Operations Lead

What is Coast Coast is re-imagining the trillion-dollar U.S. B2B card payments infrastructure, with a focus on the country’s 500,000 commercial fleets, 40 million commercial vehicles, and many millions of commercial drivers. The incumbent technologies that cater to these customers are decades old, and businesses with fleets increasingly demand modern digital experiences and transparent financial services products. Coast’s mission is to deliver this at a transformational scale, beginning with the Coast Fleet and Fuel Card built on a cutting-edge spend management platform. About the Role Coast’s biggest initiatives cross every team. You’ll own the portfolio: decide how the work gets run, lead the people running it, and make sure it lands. As Business Operations Lead, you’ll run some of the largest cross-functional projects tied to the company’s top priorities, from first scoping to final handoff. You’ll work with leaders across Product, Sales, Finance, Risk, Legal, People, and Operations, so you need to be credible with executives and just as comfortable in the details with the people doing the work. This is a player-coach role. You’ll spend most of your time running the highest-stakes projects yourself, while building the planning rhythm and the playbooks that let the team scale. You’ll also act as a strategic partner to leadership: sizing new opportunities, building the analyses behind big decisions, and keeping quarterly priorities connected to real work. AI is central to how we do this. You’ll use it every day to plan, synthesize, analyze, and automate, and you’ll expect the same of your team. You’ll also lead specific projects that put AI to work in the business. You don’t need to be an engineer. You do need to be the person who reaches for AI first, and who can tell when it’s doing a good job and when it isn’t. You’ll report to Stephen Rosen, SVP of Operations. What You’ll Do Own and run the project portfolio • Lead the company’s highest-priority cross-functional initiatives from scoping through launch: define the goal, build the plan, line up owners, set milestones, and drive it to done. • Keep a clear view of every active project: priorities, owners, status, risks, and dependencies. Decide with leadership what gets staffed, what waits, and what stops. • Keep work moving across teams that don’t report to you. You get things unstuck by making the next step obvious and the tradeoffs clear. • Raise risks early, with a recommendation, and keep executives informed without making them chase you. • Close projects properly: document what shipped, what you learned, and what comes next. Lead and develop the team • Manage and coach the Business Operations Associate. Set clear expectations, give direct feedback, and give them real ownership as they grow. • Decide which projects you run yourself and which you hand to the Associate, and set them up to succeed. • Build the templates, cadences, and playbooks that make project work repeatable as the company grows. Be the connective tissue across the company • Work with Product, Sales, Finance, Risk, Legal, People, and Operations to make sure the right people are in the room and decisions get made. • Translate between teams. Take a goal from an executive and break it into work others can act on, and take messy ground-level input and turn it into something leadership can decide on. • Support quarterly planning and goal tracking by turning company priorities into projects with owners, dates, and measures of success. • Run the operating cadence leaders rely on: status reviews, metrics check-ins, and planning cycles. Help figure out what we should do next • Scope and evaluate new opportunities, such as a new process, partnership, or initiative, and bring leaders a clear recommendation backed by the numbers. • Build the analyses and decision frameworks that help leadership prioritize and decide where to put time and money. • Take ideas from “this could work” to a pilot, then to something the company runs. Use AI to move faster and to help the company use it • Set the bar for AI use on the team. Use it in planning, synthesis, analysis, drafting, and reporting, and build repeatable workflows and prompts that cut manual work out of running a project. • Lead named AI initiatives that bring AI into how Coast operates, from piloting a new tool to redesigning a process around automation. Define how we measure whether each one worked. • Evaluate new AI tools against real problems and give leadership a clear recommendation on what to adopt and what to skip. • Share what works. Write it down and teach other teams. What Success Looks Like By 30 days • You know the company’s priorities, the key leaders, and how decisions get made. • You have a full picture of every active cross-functional project and its status. By 90 days • You’ve tightened the project portfolio: priorities are clear, every project has an owner and a date, and leaders can see status without asking. • You’re leading a high-priority project and the teams involved would work with you again. • You’ve used AI to take real time out of how the team runs projects, and you can show how. By 6 months • You’ve taken a major, company-level cross-functional initiative from scoping to launch. • The team is functioning as a team not just individuals • You’ve led at least one AI initiative with a measured result. • Leaders use your analysis and recommendations to make planning and prioritization decisions. • Teams use the project templates, cadences, and playbooks you built. Requirements • 6-10 years in business operations, strategy and operations, program or project management, consulting, or a similar role. Fintech, SaaS, or financial services is preferred. • Proven track record of leading complex, cross-functional projects with many stakeholders, including at least one major initiative you took from idea to launch. • Experience managing or mentoring others, ideally including direct management of an early-career team member. • Strong executive presence. You can brief a senior leader in two minutes, push back with a recommendation, and write the doc that gets a team aligned. • AI-native mindset: you already use AI tools in your daily work, you’ve built something with them (a workflow, an automation, an agent, a prompt library), and you’re excited to push further. • Strong structured thinking: you can take an ambiguous problem and turn it into a clear plan. • Strong analytical instincts: comfortable with data, spreadsheets, and spotting trends, and able to turn them into a recommendation. SQL and low-code tools are a plus. • High ownership mindset: you spot problems before they’re assigned and drive them to done. • Comfortable influencing without authority and working with people at every level. • Organized and process-driven; able to run multiple high-stakes projects at once in a fast-paced environment. • Bachelor’s degree in business, finance, economics, operations, or a related field, or equivalent experience. • Experience at a Series B or growth-stage startup is preferred. • New York City based; able to be in-office 3-4 days per week. If you don’t match every requirement, apply anyway. We care most about how you think and how you deliver. What You’ll Get • Real ownership. You’ll run projects tied to the company’s top priorities, with your name on the outcome. • Regular time with executives and leaders across the company, and a front-row view of how a growth-stage fintech makes decisions. • Hands-on AI work. You’ll use it every day and help decide how the whole company uses it. • The chance to build and lead a team, and a path to more scope as the function grows. Compensation and Benefits Our salary ranges are based on paying competitively for our size and industry, and are one part of our total compensation package that also includes benefits and equity. Pay decisions are based on a number of factors, including scope and qualifications for the role, experience level, skillset, and balancing internal equity relative to other Coast employees. We expect the majority of candidates who are offered roles at Coast to fall healthily within the range based on these factors. Salary range: $160,000 - $200,000 annually Equity Grant: Meaningful potential upside given Coast’s early-stage trajectory Benefits Overview: • Medical, dental and vision insurance • Flexible paid time off (vacation, personal well being, paid holidays) • Tools to help manage your financial wellness, including webinars, access to an equity tax advisory service, and company-sponsored 401(k) • Paid parental leave • $400 accessories allowance (a keyboard, mouse, headphones, etc.) • Education stipend • Free lunch every Friday Coast is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. We are building a diverse and inclusive environment, so we encourage people of all backgrounds to apply. We’re an Equal Opportunity Employer and do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, religion, disability, national origin, protected veteran status, or any other status protected by applicable federal, state, or local law. Check out the latest podcast interview on Fintech Layer Cake with Coast Founder Daniel Simon!