Chief Executive Officer (CEO) – Childcare Marketplace

Job Description

Alongside our corporate partner, BCG Digital Ventures is launching a stealth start-up focused on developing a marketplace for parents to conveniently access ad-hoc childcare at short notice. Our long-term vision is to redefine how parents think about childcare; away from rigid schedules and long lead times towards a world where whatever care you need can be accessed easily and when you need it. Initially we’ll start with nursery care for children 0-5, but in the long term we see potential to become a one-stop location for any support that parents may need.

We have already made strong progress towards our first objective – partnering with hundreds of nursery locations across the UK. A strong CEO candidate should be excited to pick up on this momentum and work with nurseries, employers, and parents to scale the marketplace even further.

We are bringing together a cross-disciplinary team of product designers, engineers, business strategists, user-centred designers and technical sales specialists to build an innovative offering that addresses a growing market need. The business is due to launch in early 2021, and will be based in London. Given the current circumstances, remote working will be an option and as restrictions ease, there will also be some travel required nationally and internationally.

We are looking for an CEO who is passionate about building businesses and teams to lead and own the end-to-end success of this disruptive startup. Joining at an early stage in this new venture, you will take an active role in driving growth on both the supply and demand sides of the marketplace, while making strategic decisions on the overall direction of the business.

In this role you will:

• Set the vision for the company and define the overall strategy from launch to scale, including long-term goals
• Develop and implement scalable and efficient strategies to ensure both consistent results and exponential growth
• Drive profitable growth on both the demand (parents/enterprises) and supply (care provider) sides of the marketplace
• Build from a start-up phase and lead the venture through a high-growth scale-up phase – including making recruitment decisions on early hires
• Focus on execution and the creation of short-term value (e.g. strategic partnerships), while creating a long-term strategic plan for the venture
• Own the P&L and operational budget; managing burn rate while growing the business
• Attract, retain & develop world-class talent
• Cultivate a high-performing, agile, one-team culture
• Proactively mitigate business, operational & governance risks
• Manage competition and threats in the marketplace, with constant evaluation of financial structure, capital strategy & strategic priorities
• Provide expert guidance to all functional areas, including operations, sales & product
• Regularly report updates to Board of Directors and corporate stakeholders regarding progress on strategic priorities, and collaborate with the Board to accelerate progress
• Serve as chief external spokesperson and public champion for the business at events and in the press

What you will need to bring to the role:

• Experience of leading technology companies through start-up and scale-up phases, with a track record of creating short-term value while owning the long-term strategic direction of the company
• Start-up leadership experience in a fast-growing technology company with funding
• Previous experience rapidly scaling a marketplace with both B2B and B2C components highly preferred
• Previous experience in enterprise sales or forming strategic partnerships in a B2B organisation preferred
• Track record of building successful products and high calibre teams from the ground up
• Leading Board of Directors and corporate partners to keep regular updates on business performance and progress
• Experienced leader: able to manage ambiguity and uncertainty, and guide a company through different phases of growth
• Founder experience in childcare and/or tech-forward start-ups would be a nice-to-have
• Experience scaling two sided marketplaces is a plus

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