Director of Operations

We're a family-owned, owner-operated business running two connected companies out of Newburyport. IAS Ltd. designs and manufactures custom brass and zinc hardware for premium leather goods brands, with factory production in Asia and a Hong Kong office. Buckleguy.com is our e-commerce store for leather crafters and makers, shipping hardware, leather, tools, and kits from our Newburyport warehouse. We are a team of about 30 people.

The role

We're hiring a Director of Operations to own the back office of both businesses so the owner can focus on sales, product, and marketing. You'll report directly to the owner, with no layer in between, and lead the operating side of the company: the systems and data the business runs on, back-office finance and logistics, the warehouse and customer service teams, and inventory planning.

This is a hands-on seat. You'll do the work yourself before you hand it off. One week you're building an inventory planning system in NetSuite; the next you're automating a manual process with AI, renegotiating a carrier contract, or sorting out a bad inbound shipment.

The heart of the job is systems. We want someone who looks at a manual process and replaces it with NetSuite, a data pipeline, an AI workflow, or the right outside help.

What you'll own

First and foremost, you run the back office day to day. The areas below are what that covers, but the job is the whole of it, not a list of separate projects.

Running the back office

• Manage the back-office, warehouse, and customer service teams: set expectations, hold people accountable, run reviews, and hire.
• Be the first call when something breaks: a stuck shipment, a staffing gap, a system problem, a bad inbound order. You solve it so it doesn't land on the owner's desk.
• Keep daily operations moving across both businesses and make the calls that keep work on schedule.
• Run the weekly team meeting, follow up on action items, and make sure what gets assigned gets done.

Inventory and buying

• Build and run a planning system for Buckleguy stock across about 100 vendors: reorder points, real lead times, seasonality, vendor minimums.
• Run a monthly sales and operations planning meeting tying the sales outlook to buying, in-house production, and cash.
• Track vendor performance and open orders; analyze sell-through and recommend what to cut.
• Set priorities for in-house production (straps, panels, kits) based on demand.
• Design a cycle count program and drive inventory accuracy.

AI, systems, and data

• Find and build AI and automation wins across the business and measure the hours they save.
• Build company-wide KPI dashboards fed automatically from NetSuite, BigQuery, and our other systems.
• Build the NetSuite reports, searches, and workflows the business needs, and manage outside NetSuite partners.
• Own back-office apps, integrations, Microsoft 365, IT, and systems security.

Warehouse and back office

• Oversee the warehouse team (about 15 people) through the warehouse manager: picking speed, accuracy, staffing, and hiring.
• Lead the back-office team: AP, receiving, invoicing, order entry, AR follow-up, and logistics.
• Oversee freight, import, duty, and HTS work, including duty recovery and duty drawback.
• Lead the customer service team's structure, expectations, and processes.
• Work closely with our Hong Kong office on vendor shipments, planning, and sourcing.

Cost control and the business

• Review the P&L monthly with our controller and run an ongoing cost reduction program: shipping, packaging, software, insurance, and every other line.
• Build light departmental budgets and an automated view of every subscription and recurring cost.
• Oversee facilities, business insurance, warehouse safety, and claims.
• Own the operating rhythm: SOPs, project tracking in Monday.com, scorecards, and follow-through on team action items.

What you bring

Must have

• Inventory experience. You've run inventory planning and buying: reorder points, lead times, vendor minimums, sell-through, counts.
• Real AI building. You've built working AI systems and automations in a business, connected to real data and tools, and you can show us. Using chat tools isn't enough.
• Strong ERP skills. You build reports, searches, and workflows yourself. NetSuite is strongly preferred.
• Financial judgment. You read a P&L, find where money goes, and have delivered real savings.
• Owner-facing experience. You've reported directly to an owner or founder as the operations lead at a business doing roughly $10M to $50M in revenue, with a team of under 50 people. We're looking for someone who has run operations at our size, not a department at a large company.

Nice to have

• Import, freight, customs, and HTS experience.
• E-commerce and B2B in the same business; light manufacturing; Asia sourcing.
• Experience with BigQuery, Looker Studio, Celigo, SkuVault, ShipStation, or BigCommerce.

You'll fit if you

• Would rather fix the problem than write a memo about it.
• Keep a big list moving without retreating to the parts you're comfortable with.
• Bring a recommendation, not just a question.
• Treat this as a leadership role, not an 8-to-5 job. The work takes what it takes, especially in busy season, at month-end, and when something breaks.

This is not an HR or people-management-first role. You'll lead a team and run reviews, but most of your time goes to systems, inventory, and the operation itself.