Chief Operating Officer

Role Overview

• Reports to: Al Hleileh , CEO and Co-Founder

• Location: US preferred, remote with regular travel

• Type: Full-time, near-Co-Founder level

Civic Marketplace is a modern, data-driven marketplace transforming how local governments buy goods and services. Public procurement is one of the largest, least-modernised workflows in the public sector: slow, fragmented, and compliance-heavy. Our agentic AI workflows help governments discover, evaluate, and engage vendors faster, while opening public sector opportunities to more businesses.

We have real traction, a live customer base, and a compelling market window. We’re looking for a hands-on operating leader to own the commercial and operational engine as we scale.

Why Civic Marketplace?

This is a chance to build category-defining infrastructure with real-world impact. The opportunity sits at three intersections: local governments urgently need better procurement tools; AI can genuinely change the category, from document processing to intelligent agents that improve decisions, flag risk, and support compliance; and the market is still under-contested. This is a high-friction, operationally important market where trust matters deeply and the winner needs both commercial depth and operating judgment.

About the Role

You’ll partner with our CEO AI to build the commercial and operational backbone that lets Civic Marketplace scale without losing speed or trust. This is not a late-stage COO role scaling a working machine, nor a strategy-only Chief of Staff role. We need someone in the weeds, who owns dashboards personally, unblocks the team, and knows what to prioritise next.

You will:

• Own the commercial and operating engine, connecting product, ops, and commercial around a single growth north star.

• Stay hands-on with the numbers: build and personally review dashboards, reporting cadence, and performance management.

• Bring a GM and P&L mindset, owning commercial and operational outcomes, including hiring a Commercial Lead who reports to you.

• Help crack the business model, not just execute it, converting growth into a durable, higher-margin business.

• Create urgency and clarity: set the tempo, make pragmatic trade-offs, and keep the team focused on what moves the number.

• Build for trust with public sector customers, where everything we do commercially must hold up to scrutiny.

This role is high autonomy, high trust, and high ownership, with material impact on the business, the team, and Civic’s long-term commercial direction.

About You

You’re probably not a career COO who has only scaled a working machine. You may be an early-stage GM, a Chief of Staff with real operating range, a founder or ex-founder, or a business operations leader who has built zero-to-one systems and wants a near-cofounder seat.

You likely have:

• Founder-level ownership: you take responsibility for outcomes, create clarity, and do the unglamorous work when it matters.

• Recent hands-on operating experience, staying close to the numbers and the day-to-day because you want to.

• Experience building commercial or operational systems close to scratch, ideally in an early-stage or fast-moving environment.

• Strong quantitative instincts: you think in dashboards, cohorts, and unit economics.

• Pragmatism and speed: you know when to move fast, when to invest in rigor, and when to cut scope, and operate under ambiguity.

• Leadership range: you can coach and raise standards even without a large team yet.

• Low ego and high standards: direct, curious, and comfortable being challenged.

• Mission-driven, with public sector curiosity. No prior public sector experience required, but a belief that government can buy and operate better is an advantage.

We’re especially interested in people who have operated as a GM, COO, or Chief of Staff in an early-stage company, or who come from marketplace, regulated, or compliance-heavy environments.

What’s in it for You

• Real commercial ownership: you help decide the plan, not just execute someone else’s.

• A market with room to win: public procurement is large, important, underserved, and the AI-native version hasn’t been won yet.

• A small, committed team of thoughtful, motivated operators and engineers.

• Competitive compensation and meaningful equity, structured for a high-impact, near-cofounder role.

• A remote-first team with regular time together; distributed by design, with travel given how central relationships are.