Senior Strategy & Operations Manager (f/m/d)

OUR PURPOSE AT PLANCRAFT

Building the backbone of European trades together – with AI-first software.
We’re not just building software – we’re on a mission to create space for contractors & tradespeople by equipping them with AI solutions that work the way they do: fast, practical, and AI-first. With Tier 1 Investors from Europe and the US, like Headline and Creandum as well as 30,000+ tradespeople as customer base, we’re scaling across Europe to turn scattered tradespeople into thriving communities. We believe in zero admin, not zero personality – and we build every feature with the people in mind who wear the boots, not the suits. We’re #stoked to shape the future, #together as a team, and #humble in our mission to support the builders of tomorrow.

YOUR MISSION AT PLANCRAFT

As a Senior Strategy & Operations Manager (f/m/d), you are a strategic operator, sparring partner, system builder, and connector helping plancraft make better decisions, align around priorities, and turn strategy into coordinated execution.

Working closely with our Strategy & Operations team, Management, and functional leaders, you operate across three core areas: insights & decision groundwork, strategy translation & integrated planning, and execution enablement & company operating systems. You bring structure to complex company-wide topics, connect the right stakeholders and information, and turn ambiguity into pragmatic systems that work in practice.

As plancraft enters its next growth phase on the path to Series C, this role is central to strengthening how we steer and scale the organization. You take end-to-end ownership of critical company systems and selected high-impact, cross-functional initiatives — from diagnosing a problem and designing the target setup to stakeholder alignment, implementation, tooling, communication, and continuous improvement.

The role combines two operating modes: running the engine by operating and improving recurring company systems, and upgrading the engine by building the next capabilities and operating models plancraft needs. Your work creates the backbone for greater clarity, alignment, speed, and follow-through across the organization.

YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES

• Act as a trusted strategic partner and connector: Build strong relationships across Management and Leadership, connect perspectives across the organization, and help bring the right people, information, and decisions together at the right time.

• Strengthen company decision-making: Connect relevant internal and external inputs, create transparency, and turn complexity into clear insights and decision groundwork for Management and key stakeholders.

• Translate strategy into coordinated execution: Design and facilitate the systems that connect company direction with priorities, plans, goals, ownership, dependencies, and follow-through.

• Evolve planning, steering & Management systems: Help shape annual planning, goal-setting, company steering, Management rhythms, decision forums, information flows, and follow-up to enable better focus and faster, well-informed decisions.

• Build scalable company operating systems: Improve shared processes, communication formats, tooling, automation, AI-enabled workflows, and ways of working that reduce coordination overhead and increase organizational effectiveness.

• Lead high-impact cross-functional initiatives: Structure ambiguous company-critical problems, orchestrate stakeholders and workstreams, and drive initiatives from diagnosis and design through implementation and adoption.

• Create clarity and durable impact: Improve visibility into priorities, progress, risks, dependencies, and decision needs, while building pragmatic systems that are adopted by their users and continue to work beyond individual projects.

YOUR PROFILE

Must-Have Skills

• 5+ years of experience as a strong generalist in strategy, business operations or transformation environments, e.g. as Chief of Staff, Strategy & Operations Manager, in PMO or in a Founders office.

• Proven ability to structure complex, ambiguous problems and turn them into clear, actionable solutions.

• Experience designing or improving systems, processes, or operating models in fast-scaling organizations.

• Track record of leading cross-functional initiatives or programs end-to-end (incl. PMO discipline).

• Strong analytical and synthesis skills, translating complexity into clear insights and recommendations.

• Excellent communication skills (written & verbal) with experience creating executive-ready materials.

• Confident stakeholder management skills, especially with senior leadership

• High ownership, autonomy, and execution strength: you create momentum without needing detailed instructions.

• Strong judgment to balance strategic ambition and output quality with pragmatic, scalable solutions.

• Experience working closely with founders or senior leadership in fast-paced environments.

• Hands-on exposure to areas like planning systems, company operating models and change initiatives.

• Comfortable using AI tools and building basic workflows and agents.

• Ability to structure documentation and knowledge environments using tools such as Notion.

• Excellent communication skills in English.

• Willingness to regularly join the team and key stakeholders in Hamburg for selected workshops and working sessions. For remote setups within Germany, regular Hamburg presence approximately every 4–8 weeks is expected.

Nice-to-Have Skills

• Experience across multiple startup or scale-up stages and different leadership setups.

• Experience designing and facilitating high-stakes workshops and Management sessions.

• Admin level experience in Notion and Slack.

• Fluent German skills.

WHO THIS ROLE IS FOR

This role is for a strategic operator, systems thinker, builder, and connector who can zoom out to understand the bigger picture and get hands-on to move things forward.

You are someone who: