Head of International Operations

Ensure operational excellence for Kactus internationally. In practice, this means delivering outside France the same quality of service, the same client satisfaction and the same depth of venue network as in France. The role is not responsible for new client acquisition, which remains driven from France by our sales and online acquisition teams. On this role, growth comes from deeper penetration of our key accounts and a higher repeat rate. Scope, team and reporting line You will directly manage our international project managers already in place and lead the upcoming hires. Reporting line: reports directly to the CEO. This is a Head-of level position. Key stakeholders:
• the Executive Chairman, on international strategy;
• the CTPO, on product and tools;
• the Head Of Sales, on client accounts;
• the CFO, on legal, financing, invoicing and collections.

Key responsibilities
The role has three blocks, listed by order of priority.
• Operational excellence and client growth
• Be the go-to person for adapting our French processes to each country's specificities. Handle escalations and critical incidents on events.
• Make the end-to-end journey reliable, from quote to collection, including multi-currency and intra-EU VAT, with Finance.
• Grow penetration within existing accounts: contribution to the acquistition of new users, increase of repeat customer ratio and expansion of event types served within the account.
• Build and run a development plan for the current international portfolio, account by account, co-owned with account managers: they own the commercial relationship and the revenue target; you own client satisfaction and our ability to serve each account in each country.
• Work with Product, Data and Tech so they have the information they need to build the highest-impact features and reduce manual work.
• Measure and improve user satisfaction on events abroad, and tackle pain points as a priority.
• Team management and structuring
• Lead our team of senior event managers across several countries, and set team rituals and individual objectives.
• Scale the teams in each country: identify great talent, hire new project managers to support growth and train the team to be the best it can be.
• Build the country lead model and organise coverage for countries not yet covered.
• Partners and venue network
• Hotel chain onboarding will be handled by our french supply team, but the framework for local onboarding in each country still needs to be built.
• Onboard new venues, negotiate terms, build relationships and manage network quality in each country. Success metrics at 12 months You are assessed on the quality and scalability of our operations and on the growth of existing accounts, not on new client acquisition. What we're looking for A highly versatile ops profile with a strong commercial sense, credible with senior project managers through field experience rather than hierarchy. Must-have:
• 8 years of experience, including managing a team spread across several countries.
• Operational experience in a high-volume B2B service business: marketplace, MICE, DMC, hospitality or business travel.
• Strong commercial sense, at ease with both key-account buyers and venue partners.
• Entrepreneurial spirit.
• Excellent French and English, written and spoken.
• Based in Paris. Nice-to-have:
• A third language (German, Italian or Spanish).
• Experience opening or structuring a country.
• Good knowledge of international invoicing and intra-EU VAT. Who you are:
• You are a problem-solver first: you love finding ways to make our international operations work better, faster and stronger.
• You collaborate easily and you love scale.
• You are hands-on, make fast calls across countries and help others grow.
• Step 1: Discovery video call
• Step 2: Skills interview with the CEO
• Step 3: Business Case
• Step 4: Founders interview
• References