Chief Operating Officer

About the role

Golden Child is redefining pet nutrition through an uncompromising focus on health, quality, and culinary craftsmanship. A Miami-based startup, our founding team includes board-certified veterinary nutritionists, supply chain experts, and classically trained chefs who engineer a food system held to human-grade standards. We offer chef-crafted, science-backed Mains and functional Drizzles designed to support lifelong health. Because feeding your dog should be an expression of love, care, and taste. We are looking for a Chief Operating Officer to lead this mission and build the operating engine that turns this vision into reality.

The role

The Chief Operating Officer at Golden Child will own the end-to-end journey from ingredient sourcing and manufacturing through inventory, fulfillment, and delivery to the customer. You will build the systems, supplier network, cost structure, and operational capabilities required to scale Golden Child from an early-stage DTC business into a national, omnichannel consumer brand. This is a highly hands-on role that requires comfort with both strategic design and gritty execution. You will negotiate with suppliers, solve production challenges, improve unit economics, and determine which capabilities Golden Child should own versus outsource. You will report directly to the CEO and work closely with Culinary, Veterinary Nutrition, Product, Finance, and Growth teams to align operations with brand promise and commercial goals.

Location: Remote (USA)

US

Engagement: Full-time

What you'll do

• Own Golden Child's end-to-end supply chain, including ingredient and packaging sourcing, supplier relationships, co-manufacturing, production planning, inventory, cold-chain logistics, fulfillment, and delivery.
• Build a resilient supplier and manufacturing network with appropriate redundancy while maintaining exceptional standards for quality, freshness, and customer experience.
• Own the operational levers of gross margin improvement by identifying and executing opportunities across ingredient sourcing, packaging, manufacturing, freight, fulfillment, waste, vendor terms, and operational efficiency.
• Develop a clear roadmap for improving unit economics as the business scales, including evaluating when capabilities should remain outsourced versus be brought in-house.
• Build the manufacturing and operational infrastructure required to support significant growth, balancing capacity, flexibility, and cost.
• Own relationships with co-manufacturing partners while continuously evaluating Golden Child's long-term manufacturing strategy, including opportunities for dedicated capacity, vertical integration, and in-house production.
• Translate demand forecasts into production and inventory plans that balance availability, freshness, working capital, and waste.
• Partner with Culinary, Veterinary Nutrition, R&D, and Product to bring new physical products from concept to commercial production.
• Own the operational commercialization process - including sourcing, costing, manufacturing feasibility, packaging, production trials, scale-up, and launch readiness.
• Build and maintain rigorous quality and food-safety systems across Golden Child's supply chain to ensure every product meets internal and regulatory standards.
• Create systems that protect quality as production volumes, suppliers, manufacturing partners, and distribution channels expand.
• Build the systems and processes that allow Golden Child to scale without unnecessary complexity, owning the operational technology stack across forecasting, purchasing, production, inventory, fulfillment, and supply-chain visibility.
• Take an AI-forward approach to operations, identifying opportunities to automate workflows, improve forecasting and decision-making, and give the team real-time visibility into the business.

Requirements

• 10+ years of progressively senior operations, supply chain, manufacturing, or related experience.
• Experience scaling a high-growth consumer business, ideally in food, beverage, supplements, or another operationally complex CPG category.
• Deep experience with manufacturing partners, supplier negotiations, sourcing, production planning, inventory, and logistics.
• Strong command of COGS, gross margin, and unit economics, with a track record of materially improving them.
• Experience building operational systems and processes during periods of rapid growth.
• Experience evaluating and/or executing in-house manufacturing or vertical integration is a plus.
• Strong analytical and systems-thinking capabilities.
• Comfortable moving between executive-level strategy and hands-on problem solving.
• High standards for product quality and customer experience.
• Entrepreneurial, resourceful, and energized.