CEO, Vegan Cafe Chain

Full Time Flex position in Flexible/Stamford, CT Area

Job Description

Vegan Cafe Chain is seeking an experienced CEO. This is a full-time, flexible position located in the Stamford, CT area.

OUR CLIENT  

 

Vegan Cafe Chain is sponsored by an active family office which has acquired or started 65 companies since 1992, 30 of which were add-on acquisitions to existing platform companies. Of the 35 platform companies, 18 have been sold for 21 times the capital invested.

 

ROLE


The CEO of Vegan Cafe Chain will help build an exciting new platform, launched from a combination of the current successful base of these retail outlets, while leveraging the assets of a commissary to build new partnerships. Vegan Cafe Chain has a great team assembled, and now they are seeking an experienced executive to lead and direct the team. Successful candidates will have significant restaurant and/or hospitality experience, and a passion for healthy food.


Responsibilities:

The ideal candidate will be responsible for the vast daily activities, which include:

  • Drive the growth strategy tied to actionable goals for performance and short-term and long-term growth developed in collaboration with the board. 

  • Build a world-class leadership team with the appropriate skills and cultural bias to lead the company forward. 

  • Aggressively manage capital investments and expenses to ensure the company meets targets related to growth and profitability.


CANDIDATE


Being an expert in the development of disruptive products and/or related technology products/services, driving world class revenue growth, and being a partner to the founding team to ensure the overall success of the company.


Required experience:

  • Proven success rising through the ranks of relevant businesses, inclusive of significant restaurant and/or hospitality experience.

  • 15+ years as a business leader with deep market knowledge; able to build and scale autonomous teams and hold them to the standard of best-in-class company programs and business practices.

  • Experience driving revenue through marketing, sales, etc. Proven ability to grow a business at the top and bottom line.

  • A high level of comfort with data analysis and performance metrics.

  • Demonstrated success with exceeding financial, customer and employee engagement goals amongst other relevant business metrics. History of P&L ownership, budgeting and modeling.


Key characteristics:

  • A builder in every sense - strategy, product, process, plans and teams. Ability to translate a strong vision into success.

  • Known for your relentless focus on the customer and business outcomes with a proven ability to build and inspire great teams. Highly focused on results and fundamentals.

  • Passionate about developing a unique best-in-class customer experience and product suite.

  • Have strong brand ethos; knows how to build brands and build competitive advantage with brand strength.

  • Commercially minded; knows how to drive growth and impact.

  • Ability to balance “gut instinct” with data to ensure decisiveness and momentum with internal and external stakeholders.  

  • Ready to rapidly scale a socially impactful brand


Key competencies:

  • Brand Vision: Ability to successfully scale highly differentiated brand experiences within both physical and digital footprints. Has a strong POV and draws on a multitude of experiences. 

  • Innovation and Entrepreneurialism: Ability to thrive in a dynamic, fast-paced environment. Relentless focus on improvement and raising the bar. Leans in harder when times are good. Balances scrappiness and execution with business maturity, prioritization, and thoughtfulness. Is curious, agile, a self-starter and welcomes challenge as a conduit to improvement. Can be creative with resources and has a history of getting things done in complex environments and flat hierarchies.

  • Team Leadership: Passionate, high integrity leader who can build and drive the Palm Ventures DNA across the company. A true servant leader with a player/coach mentality. Someone who can do the work when needed and can also build/inspire a team to do the work and deliver for the clients and the business. Has a bias for the importance of talent and training, and possesses the energy, sincerity, and drive to engage and build meaningful relationships, grounded in trust, with a diverse and distributed team. Genuinely excited to spend time in the business, with the team and customers, and always know the “pulse” of each. Balances inspiration and accountability. Embodies and drives the core values. Leads with calm manner during times of stress.

  • Growth/Optimization/Scale Mindset: Relentless and driven. A "both/and" leader who can hold both unbridled optimism and healthy skepticism/focus on mitigating what could go wrong at the same time. Has an ability to both develop a strategy and lead the organization in its execution. Can think high and low. Possesses the intellectual horsepower/problem solving ability to lead the charge on tackling complex problems. Uses data/analytics to drive business decision-making and pushes the organization to build out BI/analytics capability.

  • Ownership and Mastery of Craft: Focused on outcomes utilizing ruthless prioritization. Able to deliver on commitments while installing the right amount of process to enable steady performance. Flexible in approach to deliver quality and brand excellence, in the face of high growth and unexpected twists and turns. A relentless execution expert with confidence in their expertise in core areas. Always learning, optimizing, and improving.

  • Collaboration and Influencing: Will have the gravitas, willingness, and ability to work effectively at all levels of the organization. Facilitates connection and collaboration across the business. Brings the “playbook” to the table but has the flexibility and humbleness to adapt to business and stakeholder needs. Will contribute skill and experience with generosity and be willing to work with anyone to drive real business impact. Balances strong quantitative and analytical skills with the emotional intelligence needed to influence organizational outcomes.

  • Effective Communication Skills: High integrity, no-nonsense approach. Knows how to communicate through the brand voice and at all levels of the organization. Understands how to communicate through a decentralized franchise organization with many powerful stakeholders. Quick and to the point. Welcomes candor from above and below. An active listener.


The compensation for this role is $200k-$300k plus equity.