Strategy & Operations Manager

About the Role

BWZ is growing, fast. We're actively diversifying into new business segments, revenue streams and looking to operationalize our processes more effectively with AI.

We're hiring a Strategy & Operations Manager to be the person who brings order to that messy middle. You'll report to our COO and work closely with our VP Finance and VP Tech/AI to install real project discipline across the business, own the end-to-end build of zero-to-one initiatives, and produce the analysis and business cases that let leadership make good decisions quickly.

Who You Are

You're someone who likes to build things. You've probably worn a lot of hats — maybe you started a business, have experience working across a wide variety of roles and disciplines or have taken a different route entirely! Either way you're experienced across the breadth of operations, marketing, and product.

You have a clear point of view on how work should get done and you're comfortable driving cross-functional partners toward a structured process without coming across as a bureaucrat.

You like ambiguity because it means you get to build the answer. You're analytical enough to model a business case but practical enough to know when a napkin math estimate will do. You've used AI to make yourself faster at everything you do, and you know enough about what modern software can do to ask the right questions of the tech team — even if you're not writing production code yourself.

You're broadly competent across functions and impatient with meetings that don't move toward a decision.

What You'll Be Doing

• Owning the end-to-end build of zero-to-one initiatives — you'll take new product pilots and iterations from idea to launch, running the costing, lead time, pricing, and go-to-market work yourself
• Installing project discipline across leadership initiatives — making sure business cases get built before things ship, decisions get documented, owners are clear, and cross-functional partners actually follow through
• Acting as the business-case clearinghouse — when a department head has a half-baked idea for a new product, program, or team, you're the person they go to to pressure-test it and turn it into something leadership can say yes or no to
• Supporting the VP Finance on FP&A for new products — revenue projections, cost structures, break-even and sensitivity analysis (you won't own FP&A, but you'll be the analyst on new-product models)
• Designing and standing up scorecards and dashboards — starting with content performance and expanding from there
• Being the architect when we spin up a new team or department — scoping responsibilities, doing light internal org design, and handing off to the incoming lead
• Unblocking the COO so they're not the bottleneck on every cross-functional project

How Your Success Will Be Measured

• Value Delivery Rate (primary) — % of key thrust initiatives hit their defined success criteria each quarter (revenue, efficiency, or engagement)
• Execution Coverage — % of key initiatives with defined scope, owner, timeline, success criteria, and active tracking + reporting in place
• Efficiency Impact — measured improvement in unit economics or operational efficiency from the initiatives you support each quarter (margin %, cost per output, time saved per workflow)
• Supporting indicators — # of business cases delivered per quarter, forecast accuracy on initiatives (revenue, cost, timeline variance vs. plan), 2-3 key initiatives supported per quarter, leadership confidence in initiative readiness, and post-launch review completion rate

Your Skillset Includes

• Experience in program management, product management, business operations, or strategy-and-ops roles — ideally in a smaller or scale-stage business rather than a big corporate
• A project/program discipline background — you know how to run a structured delivery cadence and keep peers aligned and on-track without relying on direct authority
• Solid business modeling skills — revenue, cost, and margin work in Excel or Sheets
• Comfort diagnosing messy cross-functional problems and proposing a path forward
• A working fluency with AI tools — you use them daily and know when to reach for them
• Enough technical curiosity to ask good questions of engineers and automation platforms — you don't need to code, but you should know what's possible
• Data analytics chops (SQL, dashboarding, or similar) — particularly useful for the content scorecard work

Nice to Haves

• MBA or equivalent cross-functional breadth
• Prior founder experience (successful or otherwise — either counts)
• Background in media, content, or adjacent businesses
• Direct FP&A or finance experience

Salary Statement

This full-time position is available as either a remote or hybrid position (depending on location), with an annual salary in the range of $120,000 to $160,000 CAD. The range is a guide for the expected skills, knowledge and experience for new hires based in Canada only. Seniority level and salary ranges are determined through interviews and a review of education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities of the applicant, equity with other team members, and alignment with market data. This means ranges will vary for candidates based outside of Canada and/or at different seniority levels. In addition to annual salary, full-time employees are eligible for a discretionary bonus and a comprehensive benefits package.

We’re a rapidly growing, independent media tech company headquartered in Vancouver, B.C. Canada. Since 2012, our portfolio of influential digital publications has been helping millions of people succeed at work.

Our brands cover thought leadership for executives in project management, people management, product management, tech, marketing and many others - with the goal of connecting people with knowledge, skills and tools they need to succeed professionally in the age of AI.

We got our start in 2011 as The Digital Project Manager blog, founded by our CEO Ben Aston. Since then, we’ve grown into an international team of 70+ creators, strategists, and innovators with a portfolio of more than 15 online publications. We enjoy an impact-driven environment that combines the agility of a startup with the creativity of an agency and the diversity of a global company.

We’ve previously ranked #30 in The Globe and Mail’s Fastest Growing Companylist as well as Deloitte'sFast 50 program, received a CMI award for Best Digital Publication for The Digital Project Manager—and we’re listed in both Canada's Top Small & Medium Employers, and Best Employers in BC!

All of this growth is driven by our commitment to our mission: In a world of evolving skills, practices, and technology, we’re creating a playbook for the future of work and empowering communities to create it with us.

Want to learn more? Watch this video to learn why the team love working at BWZ!

Black and White Zebra is an equal opportunity employer and considers all candidates for employment regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, citizenship, age, disability, marital status, military or veteran’s status (including protected veterans, as may be required by federal law), sexual orientation or any other category protected by law. We celebrate all backgrounds and attributes that continue to help make our team impactful, iterative, adaptable, and fun!

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