Chief Operating Officer

You've spent your career building the internal engine that lets complex, technically demanding businesses scale with discipline. You know how to bring together manufacturing, supply chain, quality and business operations into a coherent whole. You've done it in environments where getting the fundamentals right isn't optional, and where the operating rhythm of the organisation directly determines whether the technology reaches its potential. That's exactly the kind of leadership Cellular Origins needs right now.

We automate cell therapy manufacturing. Our Constellation platform brings together mobile robotics, AI and existing bioprocess tools to make the production of these therapies faster, cheaper and vastly more scalable. The technology works. The partnerships are in place. What comes next is disciplined execution, and we need a COO who knows how to build the operating organisation that makes it real.

Cell and gene therapies are reaching patients who previously had no options. The thing standing between those therapies and more patients is manufacturing. It is genuinely hard to produce these treatments reliably, safely and at scale, which is precisely why Cellular Origins exists. As COO, you won't just be running operations. You'll be removing one of the most stubborn bottlenecks in modern medicine.

Every system we build and release represents a therapy that can now be manufactured with less labour, less space and lower cost. Your work will determine how many of those systems get built, how consistently they meet the standards our customers depend on, and how well the business holds together as it scales.

As COO, you'll sit on the executive team reporting to the CEO, working closely with peers across product, commercial and finance. Your remit is to build and lead the central operating functions that support the development, readiness and day-to-day execution of the Constellation ecosystem, ensuring the business scales in a coordinated and repeatable way. That means bringing together hardware and consumable manufacturing, supply chain, quality and business operations into a coherent, data-led operating model.

This is a role for a proven ‘mountain climber’. We plan to move from early pilot deployments to commercial scale installations, and the organisational capability behind that transition needs to be designed, built and run with real rigour. You’ll recruit and mentor senior leaders across Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Quality and Business Operations, and establish the operating rhythm that ensures the business runs in a coordinated, disciplined and repeatable way as it scales.

Our growth requires us to widen our operational capability, with this role sitting alongside our current COO who will narrow their role to one of Chief Delivery Officer, overseeing Product Development teams and all customer-facing delivery.

What you'll do

You'll get to define what operations looks like at Cellular Origins, from the first pilot builds to coordinated multi system, multi-geography scale.

• You'll get to design the operating model that takes Constellation systems reliably from engineering handover through manufacturing, build and test, and into readiness for deployment.
• You'll lead the build-out of teams, processes and performance measures that keep pace as production volumes and organisational complexity grow.
• You’ll ensure the organisation consistently produces systems that are built, tested and consistently ready for deployment, with installation and commissioning in customer facilities owned by our delivery function.
• You'll help embed a culture that holds safety, quality and accountability as genuinely non-negotiable, while staying open to learning as the business evolves.
• You'll lead senior hires across the operations function, mentoring leaders who can each own their domain as the business scales internationally.
• You'll explore how digital systems, ERP, QMS and operational data can drive better visibility and decision making across the whole operating model.
• You'll help shape how Cellular Origins plans and allocates resources across manufacturing, supply chain and business operations, so that every function moves in step with the others.

You're a senior operations leader with experience building and running the internal functions that allow technically complex, regulated businesses to scale. Your background might be in medtech, bioprocessing, biotech automation, semiconductor or advanced industrial automation. What matters is that you understand how organisations operate when quality, safety and compliance are non-negotiable, and how to create the processes and structures that sustain that standard as headcount and output grow. Direct experience of GMP cell therapy manufacturing isn't essential. 

You have a strong track record of bringing coherence to complex operating environments: aligning manufacturing, supply chain, quality and business operations around shared goals and clear accountability. You think comfortably at the level of organisational design and capital allocation, and you're equally interested in the detail of how a specific process works on the floor. You've used digital systems to drive genuine visibility and better decisions, not just to satisfy process requirements. 

You're collaborative by instinct, thoughtful about people, and genuinely motivated by the idea that a well-run internal operation can help more patients access therapies that could change their lives. That combination of commercial rigour and human purpose is exactly what this role needs.

Benefits

Our employee benefits include:

• Annual bonus
• 25 days holiday
• Employer pension contribution of 10% of salary
• Free lunch and all-day refreshments
• Private medical insurance for employees and dependants
• Enhanced family friendly leave
• Life insurance worth 6x salary
• Electric car leasing scheme
• Cycle to work scheme
• Season ticket loan
• Activities and community that supports healthy activities that bring colleagues together; whether it's lunchtime squash or football, Zumba or our own rock band.

Apply now to join an exceptional team redefining how cell therapies are manufactured and helping bring life changing treatments to more patients, faster.

Every application will be reviewed by the hiring team and will receive a response.