VP, Operations
Riipen
Operations
Canada · Remote
Posted on Mar 4, 2026
The VP, Operations is the most senior leader in the Operations function and a peer member of Riipen’s executive team. This role owns the architecture and performance integrity of Riipen’s Operating System so the company can scale revenue growth, margin, and outcome reliability in parallel.
The VP, Operations builds the systems that turn ambition into predictable execution. They ensure that growth compounds rather than fragments, that commitments remain credible, and that impact scales without sacrificing quality or sustainability.
When this role is working well, Riipen runs with clarity. Decisions are made once and enforced consistently. Leading indicators surface early. Escalation is predictable. Teams move fast because the system is strong.
This role partners directly with the CEO to institutionalize disciplined execution across the company.
- Department
- Operations
- Employment Type
- Full Time
- Location
- Canada - Remote
- Workplace type
- Fully remote
Key Responsibilities
Responsibilities include, but are not limited to;
Operating System Architecture and Executive Cadence
- Own the full scope of Riipen’s Operating System architecture, including enterprise OKRs, KPIs, scorecards, decision forums, accountability structures, and company-wide operating rhythms.
- Design and maintain the executive cadence that translates strategy into measurable execution across Product, Revenue, Delivery, Employer, and Finance.
- Ensure cross-functional planning is disciplined, time-bound, and aligned to enterprise priorities.
- Maintain clarity of decision rights, forum ownership, and escalation paths.
Functional leaders retain ownership of their strategic domains and targets, and the VP Operations ensures those commitments are governed, measured, and executed through Riipen’s Operating System.
Enforcement, Gates, and Enterprise Discipline
- Enforce Product-defined quality gates and outcome reliability thresholds
- Enforce Finance-defined sustainability gates, including margin discipline and unit economics.
- Ensure adherence to decisions made across the business through functional forums (Product, Revenue, Strategic Initiatives, and Finance)
- Exercise authority to pause launches, reduce scope, or block commitments that violate agreed gates or create unsustainable risk.
The VP, Operations role is not a facilitator of activity in the business - they are critical in sustaining and reinforcing the architecture that will help Riipen to grow.
Launch and Scale Governance
- Own the system to monitor operational readiness gates for new products, delivery models, employer programs, and geographic expansion.
- Ensure launches occur only when quality, sustainability, and execution standards are met.
- Protect enterprise capacity by preventing initiative overload and reinforcing start-stop discipline alongside Strategic Initiatives.
Growth should increase strength, not fragility.
Performance Integrity, and Signal Design
- Build leading indicator systems that surface operational deterioration early across revenue, delivery, quality, and margin
- Reduce operational variance and late-stage surprises through disciplined execution frameworks.
- Own the CRM as the enterprise system of record, including schema governance, data integrity, access controls, and enforcement signals.
- Ensure workflows reinforce operating standards.
- Partner with Revenue Operations, which owns revenue workflows within the CRM, while maintaining enterprise governance authority.
Executive Leadership and Board Partnership
- Serve as a peer executive responsible for enterprise execution clarity and discipline
- Provide board-ready reporting on operational health, leading indicators, systemic bottlenecks, and execution risk.
- Partner closely with the CEO to ensure strategic ambition is matched with operational integrity.
- Support executive hiring and onboarding for operationally critical roles.
Areas of Oversight
- Revenue Operations including Director of Operations as a direct report
- Data and Operations team with four indirect reports
- Compliance function with one direct and one indirect report
- Legal oversight related to governance, escalation, and enforcement rather than direct legal execution
Skills, Knowledge and Expertise
These aren’t hard requirements, but will be indicators that guide our search.
You may be a good fit if you:
- Bring 10+ years of leading operations, business systems, or strategy in a scaling SaaS or technology organization, with direct responsibility for company‑wide operating rhythms and governance.
- Have a proven record of building or transforming operating systems that drive disciplined execution, cross-functional alignment, and measurable business performance.
- Are fluent in enterprise operating frameworks - OKRs, KPIs, governance forums, and know how to use them to turn strategy into predictable outcomes.
- Demonstrate credibility in enforcing standards and decision integrity across functions while still enabling collaboration and growth.
- Combine systems-level thinking with a strong command of data models, CRM architecture, and operational health indicators.
- Thrive in ambiguity, quickly building structure and rhythm where none exists, and scaling those systems sustainably as the business grows.
- Partner effectively with executive peers and boards, communicating complex operational signals in clear, decision-ready formats.
- Lead with conviction and curiosity—balancing attention to detail with awareness of enterprise priorities and long-term resilience.
- Value a transparent, inclusive, and feedback-oriented culture and believe strong architectures empower people, not constrain them.
We ask that if you feel like you don’t check all the boxes but have the potential to learn what you don’t know, that you still apply! We believe that diverse teams are high-performing teams and we strive to employ individuals with a diversity of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives.
If this role excites you, we look forward to receiving your application!
Benefits
- Remote/travel working opportunities (when appropriate)
- 4-weeks of annual vacation
- Extended Health and Dental benefits from your first day
- Flexible health spending account
- Work from home stipend
We appreciate your interest and application. Only those applicants under consideration will be contacted.
Riipen is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. Employment decisions are based on merit and business needs, and not on race, colour, creed, age, sex, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, marital status, medical condition, physical or mental disability, military service, pregnancy, childbirth and related medical conditions or any other classification protected by federal, state or provincial and local laws and ordinances.
Reasonable accommodation is available for qualified individuals with disabilities, upon request.
Riipen is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. Employment decisions are based on merit and business needs, and not on race, colour, creed, age, sex, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, marital status, medical condition, physical or mental disability, military service, pregnancy, childbirth and related medical conditions or any other classification protected by federal, state or provincial and local laws and ordinances.
Reasonable accommodation is available for qualified individuals with disabilities, upon request.
About Riipen
Conceptualized by Dana Stephenson and Dave Savory for their capstone entrepreneurship project at the University of Victoria, Riipen addressed an issue that they faced personally as learners — the challenge of gaining relevant work experience, building a network of possible employers, and then demonstrating their skills to that network in order to find work that would help them start their careers. They were facing the graduation conundrum — You can’t get a job without experience, but you can’t get experience without a job.
Since inception in 2013, Riipen has expanded its reach internationally and has developed a state of the art technology platform that caters and provides significant competitive advantages for organizations and academic institutions while staying true to their original goal of supporting student development. Riipen has enabled 193,000+ students at 590+ post-secondary institutions and training providers to partake in applied learning with 31,000+ companies. All of this leads us to our mission: Eliminate Underemployment.
Our Hiring Process
Stage 1:
Application Received
Stage 2:
First Interview w/ People & Culture
Stage 3:
1st Interview
Stage 4:
Final Interview
