Manager - Strategy & Operations

Manager Strategy & Operations

Clear's Vision

Clear makes software for the CFO's office. We started with tax compliance in India and now sell in 11 countries. Governments around the world are introducing rules that require businesses to report their invoices to the tax authority and exchange them over government-designated networks. 29 countries have mandates coming into force between now and 2030. Each mandate means enterprises have to change how their finance systems work, usually against a fixed deadline, and they need a vendor to do it for them.

Where we are as of today:

- 3,700+ enterprise customers

- Live or ready in 11 countries, up from 3 a year ago. We expect 25+ by early 2027.

- Government accreditation in India, Saudi Arabia, UAE, France and Oman

- 6M+ invoices processed a week in Saudi Arabia alone, at 99.9% success

- Targeting profitable growth with 40%+ revenue CAGR over the next three years

Our international business will be larger than our India business within the year. We have also started working in markets well ahead of their mandate dates, currently the Philippines and Spain.

Alongside the compliance business we have begun building AI products on top of the finance data we already hold for customers. CFO Studio and Agent Studio let finance teams build agents that do actual work rather than produce reports.

This is the bigger opportunity for us over the next few years. We already hold compliance data for a few thousand enterprises, which puts us in a reasonable position to take on more of the work that runs a CFO's office.

Purpose of the Role

This role sits in the CEO's office and reports to the Chief of Staff to the CEO.

What you will be responsible for

- Running programmes through to a decision. You will be given something loosely defined - that we take too long to open a new market, or that our win rate in Europe is not improving. You work out what the goal should be, who needs to be involved and what the plan is, then run it until a decision is made and implemented.

- Operating cadence and reporting. Weekly and monthly reviews across markets and business lines, with one set of numbers that everyone works off. A large part of this is noticing when something is going wrong early enough that it can still be acted on, rather than reporting it once the quarter has closed.

- New market work. For countries whose mandates are 18 to 24 months away, we need to understand the size of the opportunity, the partner and regulatory landscape, and what has to be ready and by when. You would be doing this research yourself.

- Analysis on open questions. Pricing, partnership models, cross-sell, where the next increment of GTM budget should go. We would want a recommendation you have thought through and can argue for, rather than a summary of what other people think.

Role Scope

The scope is to cover any kind of programs pertaining to Strategy and Operations. The list of programs is not constant and keeps evolving as new problems are uncovered or changing priorities. To give examples of a few programs are -

- Business strategy - Going through the historical patterns and identifying strategic levers & initiatives to grow sales

- Rhythms and rituals - These would include business review rhythms, pipeline reviews, interlocks with other non-sales functions, etc.

- Customer segmentation - Segment customers into logical cohorts and orient sales/ sdr/ marketing towards high value cohorts.

- KPI planning - Defining the right KPIs for the sales / sdr teams - output and inputs

- Sales enablement - Defining the training needs based on wins/ losses and running a structured program to upgrade the wider sales team

- Process streamlining and automation - Critically evaluating the as-is process of sales (external as well as internal) and implement tools for automation to drive productivity

Competencies Required

- Analytical Acumen - Ability to drive meaning out of numbers. This has multiple components:

1. Data accuracy - ensuring data is always accurate and reliable

2. Insights - leveraging data to generate insights for the leaders

3. Actions - leveraging insights to recommend high impact actions.

- Strategic Thinking - Ability to take step-back from regular operations work and think long-term for the business. This implies - Building independent point of views on strategic decisions - such as partnership or cross-sell motion, etc.

- Program Management - ability to manage multiple programs via impact-based prioritisation and keep relevant stakeholders always informed. This also includes forecasting risk (pre-morterm) and taking corrective actions.

- Process, Playbook & Technology first Mindset - ability to think of processes in the form of scalable playbooks which can be implemented and sales can be enabled on. This also means having a technology and AI first first mindset to maximise automation vs manual work.

- Sales Acumen - Ability to understand how B2B sales motion works, what are the deal success factors, what are the top metrics tracked, how sales folks behave, etc.

Qualification Pre-Requisite

- Proven 1 - 3 years of experience for the Strategy & Operations role

- Should have worked in a technology startup before or premier Consulting firm with projects in the technology/ software industry

- Exposure to B2B Sales is preferable but not mandatory