COO Co-founder
Co-Founder COO @ Vela
TLDR
Location: Paris (OSS Ventures offices), hybrid, with on-site time at clients
Contract: Permanent (CDI)
Compensation: Significant co-founder equity, plus a base salary. Both discussed openly at the terms stage.
Reports to: CEO and founding team (co-founder role)
Start date: As soon as possible
About us
Our mission Vela is the AI native steering platform that gives leadership teams at 10 to 100m€ companies, across all sectors, instant visibility into what's going wrong and why, and the means to decide and improve performance.
Our story Vela is incubated and backed by OSS Ventures. It's led by its CEO and is completing its founding team (a COO and a CTO). The product is already live with 2 design partners, with measured € impact targeted before year-end and 2 to 3 more deployments kicking off from September. The seed round is planned for Q1 2027.
Our ambition In 2 to 3 years, to become the reference steering layer for mid-market leadership on a beachhead sector in Europe, with a delivery machine that makes each deployment faster and sharper than the last (our pattern moat), and a data layer that stays alive where others drift within months.
Our team A tight founding team, backed by OSS Ventures. The CEO owns vision, commercial, and the PE channel. The CTO (currently being hired) owns product, tech, and data. You own delivery, operations, and the analytical depth of the data and steering diagnostic, from pre-sales through deployment. Three peaks, one team.
Our values (filters, not wall decorations)
Depth before surface. We go to the bottom of the data and the business. Polish doesn't hold.
End-to-end ownership. We own an outcome, not a task.
Decide fast. We call it with the information we have, we don't wait for certainty.
Truth, even when it's uncomfortable. We say what's true. Our answers are defensible and auditable.
Why we're hiring for this role
Today our delivery is artisanal: the co-build lives in the founders' heads. To move from design partners to ARR, then to scale, it has to become a repeatable machine, and the analytical depth of the diagnostic can no longer depend on the CEO. This is a founding role, the third peak of the triangle. Without it, delivery stays the bottleneck to growth and to the raise.
What you'll do
In a nutshell You own Vela's delivery end to end, from scoping the data project to deployment and client success. You carry the analytical depth of the diagnostic, you turn artisanal delivery into a repeatable machine, then you build the team that delivers.
Your main responsibilities
Carry the analytical depth of the diagnostic and the deployment. On a client's real, imperfect data, identify the available data and the steering KPIs, model the metrics tree that connects operational data to the financial metrics, and scope the deployment plan toward clean, usable data.
Run deployments and own client success. Ship the metrics tree, the steering views, and the agents into production, until the client uses it in their real steering and converts to ARR.
Industrialize delivery. Turn the phases (Scoping, Diagnostic, Onboarding, Run) into a repeatable, measurable, teachable process: checklists, milestones, target timelines, quality bar.
Measure and manage delivery performance. Time-to-value, quality, satisfaction, retention, and the economics of delivery (cost to deliver per client and its trajectory).
Build and lead the delivery team. Define the playbook and the quality bar for the roles, recruit, onboard, manage.
On a day-to-day basis, you will
Dig into a messy client ERP extract to reconcile definitions and make a metrics tree hold.
Run a deployment session with a client CEO or CFO, showing them where their performance breaks and what it implies.
Document a step of the playbook so future recruits can run it without you.
Who you'll work with
Day to day with the CEO (who hands you the client relationship and the depth of the diagnostic), with the future CTO (to whom you feed the delivery patterns that sharpen the product), and directly with client leadership (CEO and CFO). OSS Ventures is behind you, in studio support. On delivery and analytical depth, the ownership is yours, end to end.
What success looks like
At 30 days. You've taken over delivery for at least one active design partner, you know the state of its data and its metrics tree, and you've set the next milestones.
At 90 days. You've scoped and launched at least one data onboarding on scattered, unreconciled, partially missing data. The V1 of the playbook is taking shape.
At 6 months. At least one design partner is at a state of trust (metrics tree modeled, live views, an agent that answers variances, a client using it in their real steering), and the repeatable playbook (Scoping, Diagnostic, Onboarding, Run) is documented and teachable.
Your profile
In one line: an operator who thinks like a financier, and who has already built a delivery machine. This is a co-founder seat: you want to build and own, with equity, not to run an already-built function.
Must-haves (non-negotiable, if you don't have these, this role isn't for you)
Analytical depth and modeling. You've already modeled operational performance in a P&L, on real, imperfect data. You build a metrics tree that connects operational data to the financial metrics. Financial and operational modeling, ability to abstract.
Ability to industrialize. You've already turned an artisanal delivery or operation into a repeatable, scalable process, out of chaos. Proof, not theory.
Executive presence. You're credible in front of a CEO or a CFO under pressure. You hold the room.
Command of operational data. You get your hands into real data (ERP extracts, structuring messy data) without flinching.
Years of experience
8 to 15 years, several of them in financial and operational modeling and in operational execution.
Mid-market experience.
Comfortable in French and English (delivery is client-facing in France).
Nice-to-haves (we'll be excited if you have these, but we won't require them)
PE or operating partner exposure.
Experience of a forward-deployed or client delivery environment.
Having built a function or a company from zero.
We'll teach you what you don't yet know about
The Vela product and its method.
The market and the sector patterns.
The internal tooling.
This role is probably not for you if…
You want a fully defined scope with no ambiguity.
You're uncomfortable switching between fine modeling and hands-on execution in the data.
You need a large team and established processes to be effective. Here, you create them.
You think employee more than co-founder: you're after a big cash package first, rather than building with equity.
Career path
From owning delivery to building then leading the delivery organization, and in time a full COO: coordinating a larger team, operational management, recruiting, relaying the CEO on culture and business reporting. Co-founder equity grows with the company. We're honest about the stage: everything is to be built, and that's the point.
Working conditions
Office: Paris (OSS Ventures), hybrid, with client on-site travel
Hours: Flexible
Perks: Health insurance
How we move forward together
We don't hire a co-founder, we choose each other. The process is built so you assess Vela as much as we assess you: access to the vision, the numbers, and the cap table, and real work together before any commitment.
1. First conversation — With the CEO, 45-60 min. The vision, the role, your background, your questions. Mutual from the start.
2. Two-way deep dive — With the CEO, 90 min. The substance: the thesis, the real state of Vela (traction, numbers, cap table, roadmap), and your key experiences. You dig as much as I do.
3. A day working together — With the CEO and founders, 1 day. We take real, anonymized data from a design partner and model a metrics tree together, through to the client presentation. The best test, both ways.
4. Meet OSS Ventures — With the OSS team (including Maroussia), 60 min. The studio model, the support, the conviction on the market. Fit and seriousness of the project.
5. Meet design partners — With 1 or 2 clients, 45 min. You talk to the people we serve, without us. You see the value firsthand.
6. Terms and governance — With the CEO and OSS Ventures, open format. Equity, vesting, shareholders' agreement. We align on the co-founding terms, OSS signs off on the structure.
We commit to transparency on both sides at every step, and to a joint decision within 4 weeks of the first conversation.
A word to you
This is the rare seat where you build what decides whether Vela's promise actually lands with the client. The product runs, clients are in production, the studio and the capital are behind us. What's missing is you: the operator who thinks like a financier and has already built. If depth excites you more than a well-fenced scope, and you want real equity in a category that's forming now, we should talk.