Vice President - Retail Operations & Course Materials

Role Description

This senior role reports directly into the COO and leads two of BibliU’s most critical initiatives:

• Retail operations across the 16 community colleges of the Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS).
• Physical course material operations for the entire BibliU retail customer base.

KCTCS launched with BibliU in summer of 2026 in 21 stores across 16 customers. This role will oversee the retail operation across those customers, driving year on year bottom line growth and delivering the highest levels of customer satisfaction. Two regional managers report directly into this role, who in turn manage the 16 store managers across Kentucky.

Physical course materials operations are undergoing a transformation at BibliU in response to our rapid growth. This role will lead the new course materials vertical, implementing processes and systems to optimise ordering, sales, returns and working capital management.

What you will be doing

KCTCS:

• Driving year on year bottom line growth across the KCTCS system.
• Managing the 16 KCTCS P&Ls, optimizing sales, COGS, payroll and OpEx to drive efficiency and profitability across the system.
• Monthly reporting to COO on P&L performance across all stores, providing detailed customer-level strategies for each store to improve performance.
• Directly manage and develop at least 2 regional managers covering the Kentucky region.
• Regular travel to build a detailed understanding of retail operations in Kentucky.
• Leading programmes to automate, streamline and optimise retail processes that can be rolled out across the wider BibliU customer base.
• Good potential to expand retail operations leadership beyond Kentucky depending on performance in role.
• Build relationships with campus partners and provide financial updates quarterly.

Course Materials:

• Build the new course materials vertical at BibliU across all stores.
• Ensuring cost-neutrality against current payroll.
• Introduce new roles, structures, processes and systems for the forecasting, ordering and returns of physical course materials.
• Define KPIs and OKRs that track and measure physical course materials performance and working capital demand across the entire BibliU business.
• Experiment with a blended model of new books, used books and rental programmes to optimise EBITDA and working capital across the customer base.
• Build an extensive course materials training programme for regional managers, course material managers and store managers.
• Build and develop an outstanding data analytics capability with the course materials group, delivering real time actionable insights that can rapidly course correct and enhance course materials buying.

Qualifications

• A strong people influencer, capable of leading data-driven change initiatives to optimise performance.
• A highly experienced course materials and campus retail leader, with multiple years’ experience at VP level.
• Excellent P&L management experience, demonstrating how to optimise bottom line performance through a variety of levers in a short space of time.
• Strong inventory and working capital management skills, especially in physical course materials.
• Willingness to travel extensively to stores across the US to learn about course material operations and implement solutions to improve them.
• A strong collaborator who can build excellent personal relationships across the retail and digital business.

Benefits

• 35 holiday per year - yep, that’s not a typo! (in addition to public holidays)
• Your birthday off
• 12 scheduled company wellness Fridays off per year (in addition to your vacation entitlement)
• Medical, vision & dental insurance (BibliU contributing 70% of all monthly premiums)
• 401k plan (Company Match: 100% of the first 3%; 50% of the next 2%)
• ❤️ Enhanced maternity & paternity allowance
• Flexible Spending Account
• ⏰ Flexible working hours - we’re a remote team spread across the US and UK
• Work-from-home allowance to help you set up your dream WFH station