Director of Operations

About Ripi:

Ripi is a chef-driven frozen pasta brand bringing restaurant-quality pasta to the freezer aisle. With bold, differentiated flavors and premium ingredients, Ripi is designed to elevate weeknight meals in minutes. Founded in 2025, we've scaled quickly to over 2,000 retail locations, including nationwide distribution at Whole Foods, Target and leading regional and independent grocers.

We're building a lean, high-performance team of operators who want to own meaningful parts of the business and help shape the future of frozen food.

Role Overview:

We're hiring a Director of Operations to own the entire physical business, from demand planning and production through to cash flow, margin and delivery.

This is not a traditional operations role. It sits at the intersection of supply chain and financial management, and requires someone who understands both deeply. You need to know what's happening on the production floor and why it matters to the P&L and balance sheet.

We have external partners in place: a co-manufacturer, 3PL, freight broker, order management and finance & accounting. What we don't have is a single internal owner who can tie everything together, hold partners accountable and build the systems that let us scale without operational leakage.

This is a builder role, not a manager role. You'll operate in the details while building scalable systems and you'll be expected to own outcomes, not just oversee processes.

You'll report directly to the Founder & CEO and have a ground-floor leadership role.

What You'll Own:

Demand Planning & Inventory

• Build and maintain demand forecasts across accounts, SKUs and channels
• Own inventory positioning across co-manufacturer and 3PL
• Proactively manage stock levels to avoid stockouts and excess inventory
• Develop the systems and cadence that make inventory predictable rather than reactive

Production & Supply Chain

• Manage co-manufacturer relationships with clear accountability on cost, quality and timelines
• Own production planning, scheduling and execution across SKUs
• Ensure quality control and consistency across production runs
• Identify and manage supply chain risk before it becomes a problem

Cash Flow & Working Capital

• Own cash forecasting tied to inventory, receivables and production cycles
• Manage PO financing relationships and actively work to reduce financing dependency over time
• Optimize the cash conversion cycle, understanding how production timing, payment terms and inventory levels interact

Cost & Margin Management

• Own COGS and gross margin visibility across SKUs and channels
• Identify cost-saving opportunities across ingredients, packaging and freight without compromising quality
• Maintain clean gross-to-net visibility in partnership with our external finance & accounting firm
• Build contribution margin models for new SKUs before we commit to production, evaluating whether the economics work at launch volume and scale
• Understand the P&L implications of every operational decision you make

Logistics & Distribution

• Own 3PL relationships and outbound logistics performance
• Oversee UNFI, KeHE and DSD operations end-to-end
• Ensure retailer compliance, routing guide adherence and on-time delivery execution
• Lead operational setup for new retailer launches

What Success Looks Like:

• Materially reduced risk of stockouts across major accounts
• Inventory and cash cycles are clean and predictable
• Gross margins improve over time as operational leakage is identified and eliminated
• New retail launches execute smoothly with no compliance failures or fulfillment gaps
• We have systems in place that enable the business to scale without adding proportional complexity

Who You Are:

We're looking for a specific type of operator. You're likely 6-10 years into your career with direct CPG experience. Background in a lean, growth-stage brand is strongly preferred.

• You have deep CPG supply chain experience. You've managed co-manufacturers, 3PLs and distributors before
• You're financially rigorous. You think in working capital, cash conversion and gross margin, not just fulfillment metrics
• You're a systems builder. You see broken processes as problems to fix permanently, not work around repeatedly
• You're detail-oriented without losing the strategic thread. You can be in the weeds on a production run issue and back out the P&L implications in the same conversation
• You hold partners accountable without burning relationships. You know how to be demanding and fair at the same time
• You're comfortable with ambiguity and incomplete information. At this stage, you won't always have perfect data but you can make good decisions anyway
• You have high ownership instincts. You don't wait to be told what to do and you're comfortable being accountable for outcomes you don't fully control

Why This Role Matters:

Distribution is only valuable if you can fulfill it efficiently. At Ripi's current scale (and the scale we're headed to), the difference between winning and losing at retail comes down to execution: the right product, the right place, at the right cost, with the cash flow to fund the next production run.

This role is the foundation everything else is built on. Marketing can drive velocity, sales can open doors, but if operations breaks, none of it matters. We need someone who understands that and takes it seriously.

This person will be one of the first senior operators shaping how this company grows, and has the opportunity to build something from scratch that actually matters. If you want to own the operational backbone of a fast-moving CPG brand, this is the role.

Compensation:

Competitive base salary and bonus commensurate with experience, plus meaningful equity. We'll be transparent about the full package early in the process.