Chief Operating Officer

Description

The Chief Operating Officer (COO) is the senior operational leader of U.S. Hunger, responsible for translating enterprise strategy into daily execution. This role owns P&L performance across all business lines — Full Cart, Hunger Projects, and the Data/Intelligence engine — ensuring the organization's earned-income model (97%+ of total revenue) operates with precision, accountability, and scalability.

The COO must bring the instincts of an entrepreneur and the discipline of a corporate operator: connecting dots others miss, asking tough questions that drive clarity, and building the systems that allow talented leaders to perform at their highest level. Operational excellence and mission-aligned impact are not in tension here — they are the same thing.

Enterprise Operations & P&L Execution

• Own P&L execution across all business lines — each engine must meet its margin, revenue, and impact targets.


• Establish and drive the operating cadence — monthly reviews, quarterly business performance reporting, and clear accountability across departments.


• Make resource allocation decisions across competing priorities — deploying people, capital, and attention against the highest-value opportunities.


• Present operational performance, capacity, and growth execution to the Board of Directors.


• Partner with the CEO on scenario planning, structural growth strategies, and enterprise‑wide decision‑making.

Program Leadership — Full Cart & Hunger Projects

• Provide executive oversight of Full Cart and Hunger Projects — ensuring delivery excellence, measurable outcomes, and scalability.


• Partner with program directors to evaluate, evolve, and scale programs in response to partner needs, market opportunities, and operational realities.


• Drive integration between program design, data infrastructure, and client‑facing delivery — ensuring mission impact and revenue execution are operationally connected.


• Oversee supply chain and logistics operations to ensure consistent, high-quality program delivery at scale.

Revenue Growth & Partner Execution

• Own enterprise revenue execution across health plan partnerships, corporate engagement, and strategic growth opportunities — ensuring acquisition and retention targets are consistently met.


• Drive strategies that deepen existing partner relationships and expand engagement across multiple service lines, maximizing long‑term value and organizational sustainability.


• Represent U.S. Hunger externally with payors, partners, and stakeholders — translating operational insight into compelling value propositions that differentiate USH in the market.


• Leverage buyer‑side CSR experience and existing relationships across the corporate social impact and food access ecosystem to accelerate partner acquisition and deepen engagement.

Cross‑Functional Alignment & Executive Leadership

• Partner with the Chief Technology Officer to define business requirements, program design priorities, and operational needs that shape the technology and data roadmap — ensuring platform delivery enables execution across all business lines.


• Manage the VP of Finance & Enterprise KPIs and VP of People & Culture — two executives who maintain direct visibility to the CEO through their seat at the executive table — ensuring fiscal discipline, enterprise analytics, and workforce strategy are aligned with operational goals.


• Actively contribute to organizational governance, strategy, and enterprise‑wide decision‑making as the CEO's primary operational counterpart.

Team Leadership & Development

• Build, lead, and develop a high‑performing operational leadership team — setting clear expectations, driving accountability, and coaching leaders who are growing into executive‑level roles.


• Develop performance metrics and accountability systems that connect individual and team outcomes to enterprise financial and impact objectives.


• Promote a culture of rigorous inquiry, collaboration, and continuous improvement — where leaders are expected to think critically, challenge assumptions, and own their outcomes.


• Foster an environment where staff understand both the business drivers of USH's earned‑income model and the transformative impact of their work on the communities served.

These essential job functions are not to be construed as a complete statement of all duties performed. Employees will be required to perform other duties as required.

Requirements

• 10+ years of progressive leadership in operations, business management, or revenue execution — with direct P&L ownership.


• Experience building, running, or scaling a business — including sales growth, client retention, and financial performance accountability.


• Proven ability to lead and develop directors and VPs — coaching strong operators into executive‑level leaders while holding them accountable to outcomes.


• Demonstrated pattern of connecting dots across functions — seeing how operational, financial, people, and program decisions impact each other.


• Experience at the board level — presenting performance, defending strategy, and engaging C‑suite stakeholders directly.


• Experience in mission‑driven, earned‑income environments where market discipline and social impact must coexist.


• Strong communication across corporate, nonprofit, healthcare, and community sectors — direct, polished, and confident.


• High emotional intelligence, with the courage to ask tough questions, the polish to challenge constructively, and the vision to see what's possible before it's obvious.

Background check is required for this role

Essential Physical Skills

• Repetitive finger motion as used in computer use.


• Extensive work with computer screens


• Everyday requirements of bending, grabbing, holding, and lifting light objects


• Work on Hunger Projects requires heavy lifting (up to 50 lbs), moving objects, pushing, and pulling, bending and kneeling


• Up to 50% travel time