Business Operations Lead - Merchandise

MUNDIAL is a football lifestyle brand dedicated to reminding fans why they love the game. Blending authentic football storytelling and ethnographic reporting across a quarterly print magazine, social publishing, podcasts, merch, and community platforms, MUNDIAL offers a unique blend of football, fashion, and culture. As part of Footballco, the world’s leading football media business reaching more than 400 million fans globally each month alongside brands like GOAL, Voetbalzone, and Indivisa. MUNDIAL serves as the thinking fan’s destination for original, culturally resonant football content. About the Role Footballco is looking for a Business Operations Lead to run and scale the operational engine behind our consumer ventures and growing portfolio of physical products across football and culture. Recent projects include collaborations with Gorillaz, OutKast, and Deftones, bringing global fan communities together through merchandise and storytelling. Working closely with leadership, you’ll serve as the operational backbone of the business – translating creative ambitions into repeatable systems, tracking budgets, and managing the partners that power production, inventory, e-commerce, fulfilment, and financial reporting. You take full ownership of how our operations run. We value curious problem solvers over rigid specialists: you don’t have to know how to do every single task, but you have the judgement to figure out the best, most efficient solution—knowing when to execute, when to automate, and when to bring in vendors, freelancers, or agency partners to deliver. We are open to different profiles. You might be a hands‑on operator with deep roots in merchandise, ecommerce, or supply chain, or a broader business operations strategist who excels at designing operating cadences, managing partner ecosystems, and building teams. What matters most is high ownership, commercial judgement, and the ability to turn ambiguity into structured execution. What you’ll be doing: Build the operational foundation: Develop and implement the processes, planning tools, documentation, and workflows needed to run and scale the business – from production and launch calendars to financial tracking and partner coordination. Identify the capabilities, systems, partners, and hires needed to support growth, and recommend where to invest, outsource, or build internally. Project management: Manage cross‑functional projects and product launches by establishing timelines, coordinating stakeholders, tracking deliverables and dependencies, and resolving blockers to keep work on schedule. Production, supply chain, and fulfillment: Oversee the flow of products from development through customer delivery, managing external manufacturers, production vendors, logistics providers, and fulfilment partners. Hold partners accountable for quality, timelines, and costs, resolve issues, and improve the partner network where needed. Inventory and demand planning: Maintain visibility into inventory and incoming production. Work with leadership and commercial partners to forecast demand, recommend production quantities, plan reorders, and balance product availability with inventory exposure and cash requirements. Financial management and reporting: Maintain budgets, product‑level P&Ls, and business forecasts in partnership with leadership and finance. Track production costs and vendor spend, reconcile vendor and freelancer invoices, coordinate payments, and prepare royalty reports for talent partners. Provide clear visibility into financial performance and recommendations for improvement. Ecommerce and customer experience: Ensure product information and operational processes support accurate launches and reliable fulfilment. Oversee customer support partners and use customer feedback, returns, and shipping trends to improve the experience. Business improvement: Identify opportunities to improve margins, reduce avoidable costs, and increase capacity. Help assess the operational and financial requirements of new partnerships, products, and business opportunities. What you have: 5+ years of relevant experience in business operations, merchandise operations, direct‑to‑consumer business, supply chain, e‑commerce, or consumer products. Experience in entertainment, music, sports, fashion, or businesses operating at the intersection of culture and commerce is a plus A track record of taking ownership of an operational function, managing external partners, and delivering projects across multiple stakeholders. Experience creating and implementing processes, planning tools, or reporting that improved how a business operates. Experience running day‑to‑day operations or building the teams, processes, and partner networks behind a direct‑to‑consumer, merchandise, ecommerce, or consumer products business. Able to take ownership across functions, resolve operational issues, and identify and bring in additional expertise or resources where needed. An understanding of how physical‑product businesses operate, gained through direct execution or managing the people and partners responsible. Confidence working with budgets, product costs, margins, forecasts, and financial reporting. Strong project management skills, with the ability to manage competing priorities and keep multiple projects moving. Clear communication, attention to detail, and consistent follow-through. Comfort working independently, making decisions within your remit, and creating structure where it does not yet exist. Experience with Shopify, international production, apparel or merchandise, licensing, or royalty reporting is helpful. Expertise in every area is not required. Footballco is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to, and will not be discriminated against based on age, race, gender, colour, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, disability or any other protected category. #J-18808-Ljbffr Footballco