SoFlow Service Partners
Chief of Staff
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The Opportunity
SoFlow Service Partners is a buy-and-build investment platform in the environmental services sector, backed by Strada Partners, and co-founded by Sam and Ollie Hörbye. Following the acquisition of The GreenSpark Group in April, we are uniting regional leaders across drainage, tankerage, pump maintenance and environmental compliance, into a single national champion, serving a deep network of multi-site commercial customers. Already trusted by blue-chip brands across the UK, we are past eight figures in revenue and growing through a combination of organic growth and acquisition, with the aim of reaching £100m+ in revenue over the next five years. Your job is to make the machine behind that growth work: model the deals we do, integrate the businesses we buy, and help rewire how the Group runs so that scale becomes our strategic advantage.
If you thrive in environments where there’s more to build than to inherit, this role will be the most impactful of your career.
Why This Role Matters
As part of our growing investment in building a durable, well-run platform, we are looking for a Chief of Staff to work directly with SoFlow’s Co-Founders Ollie and Sam Hörbye and help build the operating engine behind our growth.
This role is for an operator who is equally comfortable building a LBO model alongside rolling up their sleeves inside a newly acquired business. You should be self-directed and multidisciplinary, able to own the numbers behind an acquisition, lead the hands-on integration of its systems and processes, and map and improve how the wider Group runs. You will work closely with the leadership teams of our subsidiaries and travel regularly to their sites across the UK.
The ideal candidate combines operational experience in a live business environment alongside experience working in one which prizes analytical and executional rigour, for example, in private equity, transaction services and investment banking, or a comparable operating role, and brings a rare blend of financial depth, excellent operating ability and genuine ease with people.
What You’ll Accomplish in the First 12–18 Months
We hire against a Mission, Outcomes and Competencies framework. What follows aren’t responsibilities to manage; they’re the outcomes the founders and Board will judge you on.
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Be the Founders’ leverage
- Turn two founders’ intent into motion: take the priorities and convert them into workstreams with clear owners, deadlines and relentless follow-through.
- Own the operating rhythm of the Group; board meetings, leadership cadence, the packs and pre-reads so decisions get made once and executed properly.
- Take the ambiguous, high-stakes problems off their desk and bring back a recommendation, not a list of questions.
- Be the person they trust to run the thing they can’t get to, and earn more of that trust every month.
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Own the numbers behind every deal
- Build the LBO and acquisition models the Group bets on: returns, leverage, debt capacity, integration cost, with the rigour that lets the Board move on a deal with conviction.
- Run the analytical spine of the deal process: diligence, valuation, sources and uses, and a clear-eyed read on whether a target is as good as it looks.
- Turn models into judgments. Surface the two assumptions that actually matter, not the twenty that don’t.
- Hold the platform and its subsidiaries to plan, and be the first to say when something’s off.
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Make every acquisition actually work
- Own the hands-on integration of each business we buy — finance, reporting, CRM, IT, operations so, it joins the Group cleanly and fast, not eventually.
- Build the integration playbook from scratch and sharpen it with every deal, until a first hundred days that used to take improvisation takes a checklist.
- Stand inside the acquired business, alongside its leaders, sequencing the work and managing the change without breaking what made it worth buying.
- Do the unglamorous groundwork yourself and know exactly when to pull in help and when to just get it done.
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Help the Group scale as it grows
- Understand how each business works and where the platform can make them stronger — sharing what works well in one, removing duplicated effort, and freeing teams to focus on customers.
- Approach challenges from first principles: understand the goal, size the opportunity, and put in place solutions that last.
- Identify where the Group can standardise and share, reporting to systems, so scale becomes an advantage rather than added complexity.
- Champion AI and modern tooling where they genuinely help, raising what every business is capable of.
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Partner with the operating businesses
- Build genuine, credible relationships with subsidiary leadership, earning the right to add value as a trusted partner.
- Spend real time in the businesses, learning how they work first-hand, so your support is grounded in how things actually operate.
- Act as a two-way bridge between the platform and its operators — sharing context in both directions, aligning priorities and clearing blockers — and help the founders stay close to each business as the Group grows.
- Bring clarity and calm to fast-moving situations, and help people do their best work, including those who don't report to you.
What You Bring
We care more about horsepower and character than a linear CV. That said, the strongest candidates will bring most of the following.
Experience
- 5-8 years built on analytical firepower and financial rigour — investment banking, private equity, transaction services, corporate finance, top-tier strategy consulting, or a comparable operating seat.
- 1-2 years hands-on industry experience, ideally within a buy and build environment
- Hands-on LBO modelling is non-negotiable. You’ve built the models yourself and owned the numbers behind real decisions — not marked up someone else’s.
- An operator, not just an analyst. You’re as comfortable inside a newly acquired business wiring up its systems as you are building the model that justified buying it.
- A real track record of process improvement and problem-solving — untangling messy processes and rebuilding them better, as a reflex rather than a project.
- Exposure to B2B or multi-site services is a bonus, not a requirement. An instinct for how operational businesses make and lose money will get you up to speed faster.
- PE or VC experience is a bonus, not a requirement. We care about the toolkit and the judgment, however you built them.
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Mindset and Character
- Exceptional with people. You build trust fast, read a room, and are as effective in the boardroom as on the depot floor. You move things through influence, not authority.
- A passion for AI and technology. Not as a buzzword, but as a tool you instinctively reach for to make things run better. You’re genuinely excited by what it can do.
- Grit, and no ego about the work. You’ll do the unglamorous groundwork long before there’s a team to hand it to.
- Builder, not caretaker. You inherit something and hand it back materially better. Higher standards follow you around.
- Pace and judgment under pressure. You prioritise ruthlessly, decide with incomplete information, and keep moving.
- Missionary, not mercenary. You want to build a national champion that protects infrastructure, eliminates pollution risk and delivers compliance — and you want the challenge of building it.
- Entrepreneurially Driven. This is a chance to learn about what it takes to launch and scale a leading buy and build from the ground up: deal sourcing, negotiation, integration, growth and hiring!
Compensation and Perks
- Competitive base and a performance bonus weighted to outcomes
- Comprehensive induction and direct access to the founders from day one
- 25 days holiday + bank holiday
- Salary Sacrifice Pension
- Hybrid working, London-based
The Details
- Reporting to: Co-founders, Sam and Ollie Hörbye. You’ll work directly to both.
- Location: London-based, with real time on the road. Regular travel to our businesses across the UK, working shoulder-to-shoulder with subsidiary leadership, is the job not a footnote.
- PE Sponsor: Strada Partners (€593m committed). Partnership-first backers who bring M&A firepower and give management the room to run.
- Compensation: Competitive base salary plus performance-related bonus.
About SoFlow Service Partners
SoFlow is a UK-focused buy-and-build platform in the environmental services sector, backed by Strada Partners. Co-founded by Sam and Ollie Hörbye, SoFlow is building a differentiated national champion by uniting some of the UK’s best operators in the sector — integrating drainage services, pump maintenance and environmental consulting to serve multi-site commercial clients that need a unified, compliance-led solution from a single preferred supplier.
About the Group
The GreenSpark Group ("GreenSpark") is a specialist provider of environmental compliance, pollution prevention, and drainage services to large multi-site commercial and utility clients. Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Doncaster with a depot in Gateshead, GreenSpark employs approximately 100 people and serves a blue-chip client base across logistics, food production, facilities management, and utilities.
About Strada Partners
Strada Partners is a European investment fund focused on growth companies across software, healthcare and services. With €593m of committed capital and nine European portfolio companies, Strada brings the strategic resources and operational partnership needed to build something exceptional. strada-partners.com
SoFlow is an equal opportunities employer. We welcome applications from all backgrounds and are committed to building a diverse
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