Chief Operating Officer (COO)

Climate Finance Solutions (via Climate People)

About Climate Finance Solutions

Climate Finance Solutions (CFS) is a mission-driven global consultancy that helps climate tech companies unlock large-scale, non-dilutive public funding. Since 2020, CFS has secured over $1.6 billion in public funding for clients across the climate sector, accelerating the deployment of breakthrough technologies and infrastructure. CFS has built a market-leading brand in the global climate funding ecosystem, with a strong presence across North America, Europe, and other key regions.

CFS is a profitable, founder-led services firm that is actively evolving into a more tech-enabled platform. The company is focused on strengthening its operational backbone and positioning for its next phase of growth: scaling efficiently while continuing global expansion of its consulting footprint and advancing proprietary software products.

About the Role

CFS is hiring a Chief Operating Officer (COO) to serve as the company’s senior operational and financial leader and a long-term strategic partner to the CEO.

This is a critical leadership role with both near-term execution responsibilities and long-term strategic scope. The COO will step immediately into a hands-on role, owning core business operations and financial oversight, while building the systems and capabilities required to scale CFS sustainably. The COO will directly manage a full-time Operations Associate and a small team of contractors and lead the expansion of the operations team as the company grows.

In parallel, the COO will play a senior role in advancing CFS’s Grant Monitoring Service (GMS)—a software product developed within CFS—following its recent spin-out into a separately incorporated, but closely held, entity that remains tightly integrated with CFS operations and business development.

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Core Responsibilities

Company Operations and Execution

• Oversee core operational infrastructure, including financial operations (e.g., billing, payments, contracting), HR processes, and internal systems, and cross-functional workflows

• Lead continuous improvement of revenue operations to strengthen profitability, predictability, and scalability

• Manage and develop experienced team members responsible for core operational functions

• Ensure operational continuity, risk management, and internal controls through leadership transition and scaling phases

Financial Leadership and Business Performance

• Own operational finance, including oversight of bookkeeping partners, billing processes, and financial reporting

• Develop and maintain business dashboards, KPIs, and forecasting tools to support planning and decision-making

• Partner closely with the CEO on unit economics, pricing, margin optimization, and long-term financial strategy

• Lead annual planning, budgeting, and multi-year financial outlooks

• Ensure sound financial controls, approval structures, and stewardship of company resources

‍Team Leadership and Organizational Management

• Lead and support a lean, distributed global team of full-time employees and contractors

• Define and evolve roles, performance standards, and operating norms as the organization scales

• Maintain the company’s high-trust, high-performance culture grounded in collaboration and mission alignment

• Oversee core people systems, including benefits (e.g., 401k), and maintain access and approval controls for sensitive systems and data

Systems Design, Scale Readiness, and Operating Cadence

• Design and optimize operational systems to enable scale across client delivery, internal workflows, and core business functions

• Lead resolution of operational bottlenecks and structural risks by driving system-level improvements

• Upgrade core tools and workflows, improving usage and integration across CRM, project management, financial systems, and internal knowledge infrastructure

• Establish clear operating rhythms, decision-making norms, and executive reporting to support alignment and execution at scale

Strategic Leadership and Growth Enablement

• Act as a strategic thought partner to the CEO, helping shape company direction and organizational design

• Translate priorities into actionable operating plans, with clear resource alignment and execution timelines

• Pressure-test assumptions, surface execution risks, and drive disciplined, high-quality decision-making

• Advance growth initiatives across both consulting and software-enabled services

GMS Platform and Go-to-Market Leadership

• Provide senior operational and strategic leadership for the commercialization and scale-up of the Grant Monitoring Service (GMS) software platform

• Partner with the CEO to shape and execute GMS go-to-market strategy, including pricing, customer segmentation, and integration with CFS consulting services

• Define and evolve the operating and governance model between CFS and the new GMS entity, and lead executive decisions on post-spin-out sequencing, resourcing, and execution priorities

• Orchestrate coordinated execution between CFS teams and external partners, ensuring clear delivery ownership across business development and platform buildout

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Qualifications

Required

• Senior operational leadership experience in a startup or scaleup environment, including COO or COO-adjacent roles

• Proven ability to design and scale operational systems within a services-based business

• Demonstrated success driving growth through go-to-market execution, scaled service delivery, and commercial expansion

• Strong operational finance acumen, including oversight of billing, accounting partnerships, and performance metrics

• Experience leading distributed, multi-level teams, including contractors and cross-functional staff

• Comfort operating as a player-coach, balancing strategic oversight with hands-on execution

• Demonstrated integrity and sound judgment in high-trust, high-responsibility environments

Preferred

• Extensive experience in professional services, consulting, or agency-based business models

• Experience scaling organizations through multi-phase growth

• Experience supporting software commercialization or go-to-market strategy, ideally within or spun out of a services-led or hybrid organization

• Familiarity with software product development or platform-enabled business models

• Exposure to climate tech, clean energy, sustainability, or adjacent sectors

• Experience working with international teams, in particular Europe-based contexts

• Familiarity with grants, public funding programs, or complex multi-stakeholder funding environments

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Working Style and Culture Fit

• Deep alignment with CFS’s climate mission and values

• Collaborative, grounded, and human-centered leadership style

• Ability to operate with autonomy in a fast-paced, high-trust environment

• Skilled at navigating ambiguity, cross-functional complexity, and evolving organizational boundaries

• Willing to engage beyond a strict 9-to-5 structure while valuing sustainable team practices

• Motivated by ownership, impact, and building durable systems and organizations

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Employment and Compensation

• Location: Remote (work hours must overlap with Pacific Time)

• Employment Type: Full time

• Compensation: Base salary target $175K–200K + meaningful equity participation

• Benefits: Healthcare (QSEHRA), PTO, 401(k) with employer match

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