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Head of People and Culture at Buttermilk

About Buttermilk

Buttermilk is an independent creative agency shaping the future of the creator economy. We partner with some of the world’s most recognisable brands to deliver impactful, scalable, and culturally relevant campaigns. We believe in creativity powered by systems and personal growth driving professional excellence.

Our values

• Celebrate what makes us weird, with care for others.
• Build on intent, not impulse.
• Fail fast, learn faster.
• Be supported by systems, not limited by them.
• Be ambitious, pursue it healthily.

Role overview

As Operations Lead, you’ll own Buttermilk’s operational strategy - designing and delivering systems, workflows, and tooling that power our next phase of growth. You’ll turn vision into execution by building frameworks that drive operational excellence, financial clarity, and consistent team performance.

This role is central to our ambition to scale sustainably. You’ll ensure every function of the agency operates with clarity, consistency, and commercial focus.

Key responsibilities

• Operational strategy - Design, implement, and evolve scalable frameworks that align with strategic goals and financial targets.
• Process optimisation - Continuously improve ways of working, playbooks, and documentation to eliminate inefficiencies and boost productivity.
• Systems & tooling - Own the lifecycle of core operational platforms, from selection and rollout to documentation and team training.
• Financial operations - Partner with Finance on time-tracking, forecasting, and profitability improvements using data and agency management systems.
• Commercial insight - Lead initiatives that strengthen profitability, from pricing models to financial calculators and trackers.
• Scoping & resource management - Maintain and improve pricing calculators, resourcing models, and capacity tools that inform client scoping and hiring decisions.
• People operations enablement - Oversee the operational side of people systems, ensuring they run smoothly and evolve with agency needs and growth.
• Adoption & change management - Lead rollouts of new systems or processes with training, feedback loops, and clear change leadership.

Core competencies

• Strategic execution - Translates business goals into scalable systems and frameworks that drive clarity, consistency, and growth.
• Operational design - Builds and embeds efficient workflows, documentation, and tooling that improve delivery and team performance.
• Process optimisation - Continuously identifies and addresses inefficiencies, refining processes to support scalability and operational excellence.
• Commercial acumen - Understands key financial levers and uses them to inform smarter decisions and improve profitability.
• System stewardship - Owns the lifecycle and performance of core agency platforms, ensuring effective use and strong data hygiene.
• Change leadership - Leads successful rollouts of new tools or processes with clear communication, training, and adoption strategies.
• Communication & clarity - Simplifies complexity through clear documentation, tooling, and operational guidance.

You will thrive in this role if you.

• Love bringing clarity to complexity and enjoy building order in fast-paced, creative environments.
• Are equal parts strategist and doer - happy to design frameworks and roll up your sleeves to build and implement them.
• Have strong commercial instincts with the ability to link operational design to profitability and performance.
• Get energy from problem-solving, refining systems, and discovering better ways to work.
• Care deeply about culture and believe significant operations enable happy, high-performing teams.

Success metrics

• Increased efficiency through documented ways of working and consistent adoption.
• Clear improvements in profitability driven by enhanced pricing, scoping, and capacity planning.
• High compliance with implemented operational systems.
• Strong feedback on onboarding, operational clarity, and tooling usability.

Required skills & experience

• 4+ years of experience in operations, ideally within agencies or high-growth service businesses.
• Proven ability to own, manage, and implement agency operations tooling.
• Demonstrated success in designing and scaling operational systems and frameworks.
• Strong commercial acumen with a strong understanding of agency financial drivers.
• Skilled in change management, with experience driving adoption of new systems and processes.
• Excellent communicator with the ability to translate complexity into clarity.

What we offer:

• Private medical insurance
• The hybrid working model from our Shoreditch office
• £200 home office setup budget
• Night key membership for cultural experiences
• Birthday leave + Friday 2 PM finish.
• Dedicated personal development budget

Seniority level

• Seniority level

  Associate

Employment type

• Employment type

  Full-time

Job function

• Job function

  Other

• Industries

  Advertising Services

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