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Head of Operations
Biographica is an ag-biotech startup hiring a Head of Operations to own the company's operational backbone, with a clear path to COO as the company scales.
About us: 🌽 Safeguarding the future of food
Biographica is on a mission to accelerate the development of more productive, sustainable, nutritious, and climate-resilient food sources. To achieve this, we're building the leading ML-driven trait discovery platform for crop gene-editing — enabling faster, more confident decisions about which genes and edits to pursue, to accelerate the path from genomic insight to novel, high-value traits in the market.
We announced a £7M funding round earlier this year and we're now delivering commercial partnerships on the way to Series A.
Our HQ is in London with a lab in Rothamsted.
The role
Responsibilities
Biographica has commercial partnerships with leading global seed companies, a growing team, and a clear path to Series A. As Head of Operations you'll sit on the management team — owning the full operational surface of the business across finance, people, legal, and governance. The seed stage infrastructure is in place; this role is about running it with autonomy, building on it as the company scales, and bringing the strategic judgement that lets a high-performing team move fast and with confidence. Responsibilities include:
- Company financial health: financial models, scenario planning, cash and runway, budgeting, and the accountant relationship
- Governance and the board: resolutions, investor consent matters, and investor reporting
- Series A readiness: the operational infrastructure for the raise itself - the story, data room, diligence coordination, compliance and legals
- Legal and commercial infrastructure: employment contracts, commercial agreements, and operational legal matters, working alongside our fractional GC, plus vendor, adviser, and lab-partner relationships
- People and culture: hiring, compensation, and progression
- Operating rhythm: OKRs, strategy planning, and company-wide comms to keep the team aligned as the company scales
- Company risk: insurance, regulatory exposure, and lab safety oversight - the work that protects everything else
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What we're looking for
Someone who has run and scaled an operational function within a startup or scale up independently, including:
- Ownership and systems thinking: You've held a senior operational or Head of Ops-equivalent role where decisions stopped with you. You spot how things connect across the business, prioritise ruthlessly, and know when to build for scale and when to keep it simple.
- Finance and governance fluency: You read accounts, manage cash, own a compliance calendar, and engage directly with accountants, lawyers, and investors.
- Fundraising experience: You've been close to a significant fundraise and understand what it takes operationally to get a company through one.
- People leadership: You manage people directly and make sound calls on hiring, compensation, and employment matters.
- Strong communication: Clear, concise, and tailored, whether that's an idea for the founders, an investor update, a policy, or a difficult conversation.
- Mission resonance: Genuine curiosity for life sciences and applied AI in biology, motivation to work on urgent global problems, and the humility to build carefully in a domain where the science is still moving fast. Agtech, biotech, deep tech, or life sciences background is a nice-to-have.
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Why join us?
- Leadership: This is a management team role with real decision-making authority. You'll be trusted to own your domains, set the agenda, and operate alongside the founding team.
- Shape the company's direction: Your judgement on growth, risk, people, and resourcing will directly influence where the company invests and how fast it can move.
- Work at the frontier of AI × biology: Apply breakthroughs in machine learning and gene editing to one of the world's most urgent problems.
- Join a world-class team: Work with curious, collaborative experts across science, engineering, and operations — and have fun doing it.
- Competitive package: Competitive salary, meaningful equity, private health insurance, learning & development opportunities, and a clear path to COO.
- Based in London, with four days a week in the office.
Inclusion at Biographica
We believe that rigorous science and meaningful impact require diverse perspectives. We are committed to building a workplace where individuals of all backgrounds, identities, and experiences are respected, supported, and able to contribute fully. We are committed to equitable hiring, fair advancement, and fostering an environment where every team member can do their best work.
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