Managing Director | High-Growth Circular Economy Business

Job Description

Managing Director | High-Growth Circular Economy Business

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£120,000–£150,000 Base Salary (DOE)

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Significant Annual Performance Bonus

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Long-Term Incentive Opportunity

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Company Car / Car Allowance

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Pension & Private Healthcare

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Executive Benefits

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Location: Reading – Hybrid to Reading Office

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Have you built and scaled a business, business unit or division, hiring the team, creating the structure and developing the capability required to support significant growth?

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55 Exec Search has been exclusively retained to appoint a Managing Director for an ambitious, founder-led business operating within the circular economy and sustainability space.

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The founders have built a successful business with strong foundations, loyal customers, recurring revenues and a differentiated proposition.

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They are now looking for an exceptional leader to take what they have created and build the next chapter.

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We are looking for a builder.

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Someone who has built a business, division or business unit; hired and developed the team around them; created the structure required for growth; and then successfully scaled revenue, profitability and organisational capability.

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You do not need to come directly from the waste management / circular economy industry.

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More important is your track record of building, growing and scaling a business, combined with a genuine interest in sustainability, innovation and the circular economy.

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The Opportunity

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This is not a role for someone looking to maintain the status quo.

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Working closely with the founders and Board, you will take full responsibility for the day-to-day leadership of the business and its next stage of growth.

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You will be responsible for:

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• Building the organisational structure and leadership capability required to scale.

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• Recruiting, developing and leading a high-performing team.

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• Delivering sustainable revenue and EBITDA growth.

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• Professionalising systems, processes, KPIs and management information without losing the entrepreneurial culture that has driven the business to date.

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• Developing new markets, services and strategic growth opportunities.

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• Strengthening relationships with major national and multi-site customers.

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• Driving innovation through technology, data and smarter ways of working.

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• Identifying and integrating strategic acquisitions where appropriate.

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• Working alongside the founders and Board to build significant long-term enterprise value.

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The ambition is substantial: to scale nationally and establish the business as one of the UK's leading circular economy partners.

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The Person

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We are particularly interested in speaking with entrepreneurial leaders who can demonstrate that they have:

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• Built a business, business unit or division and taken genuine ownership for its success.

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• Successfully grown and scaled an organisation through a sustained period of commercial expansion.

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• Personally hired, developed and led the team required to support significant growth.

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• Held broad, end-to-end leadership responsibility across a business rather than operating solely within one functional discipline.

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• Owned financial performance and demonstrated an ability to improve profitability.

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• Built the people, processes and infrastructure required to support sustainable growth.

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• Worked successfully within an entrepreneurial, fast-moving environment where leaders are expected to be hands-on.

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• Operated comfortably alongside founders, shareholders and/or a Board.

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• Created a high-performance culture while developing future leaders.

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Previous experience in waste management, resource management, recycling, environmental services, or the circular economy would be highly relevant, but not essential.

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We are open to exceptional leaders from other sectors who can demonstrate experience building and scaling businesses and who have a genuine interest in sustainability and the transition to a circular economy.

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What We're Not Looking For

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This appointment requires broad, end-to-end business leadership.

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Candidates whose experience has remained predominantly within a single functional discipline, whether sales, service delivery/operations or finance, are unlikely to have the breadth required for this particular opportunity.

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Equally, we're not looking for someone who has simply inherited a large, mature organisation and maintained its performance.

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We want to speak with leaders who can demonstrate what they have personally built, how they built it and the measurable growth that followed.

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A team they assembled.

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A business unit they created.

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A structure they put in place.

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A proposition they developed.

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And a business they successfully scaled.

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Why This Opportunity?

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The business operates at the intersection of commercial performance, resource management, sustainability and the circular economy.

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It helps organisations reduce costs, improve operational efficiency, increase recycling and accelerate their transition towards a circular economy through a combination of resource management, environmental intelligence, data, reporting and circular innovation.

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The founders have reached an important point in the company's evolution.

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They are looking for an experienced leader who can assume full day-to-day responsibility and build the organisation well beyond its current scale.

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For the successful candidate, this is an opportunity to apply everything you have learned from building and scaling businesses to an organisation with significant growth potential and a clear environmental purpose.

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This is an opportunity to build, not maintain.

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Confidential Executive Search

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This appointment is being managed exclusively by 55 Exec Search.

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Further information regarding the organisation and its growth strategy will be shared with candidates whose experience closely aligns with the requirements following an initial confidential discussion.

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If you have genuinely built and scaled a business or business unit, assembled the team around you and can demonstrate the growth that followed, we'd like to hear from you.

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You don't need to have built your career in waste management.

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You do need to be a builder.

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