Senior Operations Manager

Location: Remote (United States) Employment Type: Full-time Compensation: $85,000–$105,000 based on experience + full benefits + equity

About Climate Vault Solutions

Climate Vault Solutions is the diligence and procurement platform for high-integrity climate impact, surfacing the best carbon dioxide removal and superpollutant mitigation projects and bringing them to market. By leveraging leading scientific and commercial expertise across compliance carbon markets, carbon dioxide removal, and superpollutant mitigation, we work with over 50 organizations globally to achieve their climate and net-zero commitments, contributing to the reduction of more than $300M in estimated climate damages to date.

Founded at the University of Chicago by Dr. Michael Greenstone, former Chief Economist for President Obama's Council of Economic Advisors, Climate Vault Solutions is guided by an independent scientific committee (the "Technology Experts Chamber") chaired by Dr. Ernest Moniz, former U.S. Secretary of Energy. The Technology Experts Chamber sets the rigorous standards by which Climate Vault Solutions evaluates and selects the carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and superpollutant mitigation (SPM) projects in its portfolio.

About the Role

We're hiring a Senior Operations Manager to own and run the operational and financial infrastructure that keeps Climate Vault Solutions running — and to bring it to a professional, scalable standard. This is a hands-on, execution-focused role with real ownership from day one, and it's built for an experienced operator, not someone learning the fundamentals on the job.

You'll report directly to the CEO and work alongside our leadership team, including the head of corporate partnerships and the manager of our carbon removal and superpollutant mitigation programs. Climate Vault Solutions also provides operational support to an affiliated nonprofit, Climate Vault; the bulk of this role sits on the for-profit side, with a lighter, recurring support component on the nonprofit side (described below).

We're looking for someone who genuinely likes the nitty-gritty of operations — who takes satisfaction in a clean close, a compliance calendar with nothing overdue, and a vendor relationship that runs itself — and who reaches for automation and AI tooling as a first instinct rather than an afterthought. This is a role you can grow with as the company scales.

What You're Coming Into

We'll be direct: this role inherits real operational debt. Some core processes are undocumented and concentrated in individual knowledge, systems are only partially connected, and a handful of compliance and financial workflows need stabilizing. This is the central challenge of the role and the basis on which success will be measured — and it's also the opportunity. If you like walking into ambiguity and leaving behind systems that hold, you'll do well here.

What You'll Own

• Accounts payable & receivable — full-cycle AP/AR through Bill.com, including bill processing, invoicing, reimbursements, wire scheduling, and payment approvals.
• Banking & payments — corporate credit card administration and payment, day-to-day banking operations, and serving as a primary operational point of contact with our bank.
• State compliance & registrations — managing our registered-agent/compliance vendor (Labyrinth) and working down the state registration backlog across both entities, including filings, signatures, and deadlines.
• Surety bonds & insurance — managing our surety bond program and broker relationship (Haas & Wilkerson), including renewals, increases, and supporting documentation.
• Monthly close & bookkeeper coordination — running point with our external bookkeeper/accounting partner to keep the books current and closed on time each month.
• Board material coordination — supporting the preparation and coordination of materials for leadership and board meetings.
• Nonprofit support (lighter, recurring) — donation tracking/mechanics and occasional carbon credit (allowance) procurement in support of an affiliated nonprofit; this is a smaller, periodic part of the role, not its center of gravity.
• HR & people operations coordination — onboarding, payroll coordination (ADP), and benefits administration.
• Vendor & systems coordination — managing external partners to deadline, plus software, credential, and virtual mailbox administration.
• Automation & process improvement — identifying and implementing opportunities to automate and document workflows using AI and modern tooling, so the operation gets leaner over time.

What Success Looks Like (First 90 Days)

• Fluency across the operational and financial workflows of the business.
• The highest-priority workflows — AP/AR, monthly close, and state compliance — stabilized and running reliably, with nothing time-sensitive falling through the cracks.
• Institutional knowledge converted into documented, usable SOPs.
• A prioritized action plan against the operational gaps: what's being fixed, in what order, and against what measure of success.

What You're Not Responsible For

This is not a Controller or CFO role. Day-to-day bookkeeping is handled by our external accounting partner, and higher-level financial work — audited financials, board-level financial modeling, and strategic FP&A — is not a core requirement of this position. A candidate who can contribute to management reporting and cash-flow visibility is a plus (see Preferred), but the core mandate is to own the operational engine, not to serve as the organization's finance function.

Required

• 5+ years of operations experience, with meaningful time in a startup or small organization where infrastructure had to be built rather than inherited.
• Demonstrated end-to-end ownership of operational processes — you've run things, not just supported them.
• A systems thinker who executes in the specifics — you design processes and make sure they hold.
• Comfortable with ambiguity and disciplined about triaging what actually matters.
• Fluent across operational and financial tooling (AP/AR platforms, accounting software, payroll) without needing to be a specialist in any one.
• Defaults to automation before process, and process before headcount, and already uses AI tools in your daily work.
• A strong written communicator — much of your output is documentation others will depend on.
• Emotionally steady and diplomatic; this role coordinates across partners, vendors, and an affiliated organization.

Preferred

• Experience with high-volume, time-sensitive financial transactions (recurring wires, treasury operations, securities/commodity purchasing, or comparable).
• Experience managing state registrations, compliance filings, insurance, or surety bonds.
• Comfort producing management reporting, cash-flow visibility, and budget-to-actuals from a bookkeeper's records.
• Familiarity with Bill.com, QuickBooks Online, ADP, and Salesforce (or comparable CRM), and with automation tools (Zapier, Make, or custom AI agents).

Compensation & Benefits

• $85,000–$100,000 base salary, based on experience.
• Meaningful Equity — stock options in Climate Vault Solutions.
• Full benefits — 100% of the employee's premiums covered (health, vision, dental, LTD, life).
• Unlimited PTO, plus a company-wide week off between Christmas and New Year's.
• A fully remote role at a mission-driven company working at the intersection of climate science, policy, and markets — with high autonomy and visible impact from day one.