COO – Build a Global Hardware Company with Us Copenhagen | Full-time | Significant responsibility & long-term upside Grad is looking for an exceptional COO to become the CEO’s right hand and operate with the mentality of a co-founder alongside the CEO and CTO. This is not a traditional COO position. We are looking for someone who wants to take ownership of building a global hardware company – someone who gets genuine energy from solving difficult problems, building great teams, improving products and operations, negotiating with suppliers, and turning ambitious plans into results. You will take ownership of the internal engine of Grad while working extremely closely with the CEO on the overall development of the company. The mission Your job is simple to describe, but difficult to execute: Make Grad perform. You will own and continuously improve the machine behind the company – people, operations, supply chain, manufacturing, quality, cost, cash flow and organizational performance. You will lead approximately 7 people internally across operations, while managing and developing our network of manufacturing partners, suppliers and technology partners internationally. You will not simply coordinate these functions. You will own the outcome. When something isn’t working, you don’t wait for someone else to fix it. You understand the problem, bring the right people together, establish accountability and drive it to resolution. What you will own People & execution Lead, challenge and develop our engineering and operations organization. Create an extremely high-performance culture built around ownership, speed and results. Establish clear priorities, responsibilities, deadlines and follow-up. Help talented people perform at their absolute best. Step into problems personally when necessary rather than managing from a distance. Product & engineering Work closely enough with our technology and products to challenge engineers and make excellent technical decisions. Balance engineering perfection with commercial reality, speed and cost. Manufacturing & supply chain Own relationships with contract manufacturers and critical suppliers. Negotiate pricing, payment terms, capacity and commercial agreements. Improve quality, lead times, COGS and working capital. Build a supply chain capable of supporting Grad as we scale internationally. Finance & cash Understand the company’s numbers in detail. Manage operational budgets, purchasing, inventory and cash requirements. Think constantly about working capital and cash conversion. Understand how operational decisions translate into P&L, balance sheet and cash flow. Business building Think beyond operations. We want someone with a strong commercial and business-development brain who understands that operations exists to help the company win. You should naturally think about customers, margins, partnerships, new markets, product opportunities and how Grad can become a much larger company. The person we’re looking for You are unusually driven. You have an obsessive ownership mentality. If something falls within your world, you feel personally responsible for the outcome. You are highly intelligent and analytical, but you combine this with an extreme bias toward action. You are commercially minded enough to understand why the business matters, technically sharp enough to understand how the product works, financially sophisticated enough to understand the consequences of decisions, and people-oriented enough to build an exceptional team. You don’t need perfect information before acting. You don’t hide behind processes, consultants, meetings or job descriptions. You solve problems. You are probably someone who: Has exceptional personal drive and ambition. Measures yourself by outcomes rather than activity. Naturally takes ownership beyond your formal responsibilities. Is an excellent leader of engineers and operational people. Can be demanding while making great people want to work with you. Is technologically very sharp and genuinely interested in hardware. Understands manufacturing, product development and supply chains. Has strong financial understanding, particularly cash flow and working capital. Is commercially minded and enjoys negotiations and business development. Can move between strategy and extremely detailed execution within the same hour. Communicates clearly and directly. Remains calm and effective when things go wrong. Has very high standards for yourself and the people around you. Is competitive and loves winning. This is more than a job We are deliberately looking for someone for whom building companies is more than a 9-to-5 profession. That does not mean measuring commitment by hours spent in the office. It means you genuinely care. You wake up thinking about how the company can improve. A difficult product problem stays in the back of your mind until you find the solution. You see an opportunity on a Saturday and want to explore it. You get satisfaction from watching the team, product and business become better because of things you helped build. For the right person, that isn’t a sacrifice. It is what makes the journey exciting. About Grad Grad is a Copenhagen-based hardware company building products around one simple ambition: The Perfect Serve. www.grad.dk We develop innovative cooling and dispensing technology for the global wine, spirits and hospitality industries. After years of product development, engineering and market validation, we are entering the next phase: scaling our products, organization, manufacturing and international commercial footprint. We believe Grad has the potential to become a significant global hardware company. Getting there will require exceptional people. The opportunity You will work directly with the CTO, founder & CEO and have extraordinary influence over how the company develops. You will be involved in almost every important operational, technical and strategic decision. For the right person, we want this to become much more than employment. We want you to think, act and build like an owner. If your ambition is eventually to look back and say “I helped build that company” rather than “I worked there” , we should talk.