Operations Manager to a small consulting firm

Headquarters: Brussels, Belgium
URL: https://www.kumquat.eu

Overview

Our small but mighty team of two consultant facilitators is looking for an operations wizard to be the backbone to our day‑to‑day work: keeping projects on track, tools in sync, clients happy, and our team’s minds clutter‑free. In short, someone who will help us deliver transformative experiences to our clients.

• Commitment: 4 days a week (or 2 days a week at first, working up to 4 days)
• Ideal fit: Someone dependable and self-driven who loves systems, is allergic to chaos, and enjoys making things run smoothly as part of a small, professional and friendly team
• Employment status: Independent contractor (negotiable, see below)
• Timing: Ideal start early October 2025

About the role

Your missions as Operations Manager will be very diverse. In a typical week, you might:

• Run client-facing operations: Onboard a new client project just won, plan a new project’s timeline, help us draft a proposal for new work, schedule a series of client interviews, finalise a slide deck so it’s client-ready, or analyse responses to a pre-event survey to understand what a client needs.
• Support business operations: Collect content from us for a newsletter and prepare it on the right platform, publish new dates for an online masterclass, post on our LinkedIn page, and support other communication/marketing projects to help make Kumquat known.
• Manage our knowledge & documents: Keep our shared folders, templates and proposals organised (promise we’re already very good!), help version and standardise documents, review a document so it’s client-ready (no typos, perfect visuals, etc.), or set up a new internal “operating system” on Notion to collect essential information about how we work.
• Administer a small business: Prepare and track proposals, contracts, send invoices and receive payments from clients, and file receipts for our accountant.
• Maintain and improve our systems: Keep our main tools organised (currently Asana, Airtable, Google Drive, Harvest), set up a CRM system in HubSpot, troubleshoot small tech hiccups (ideally, be able or curious to learn multi-tool automations and workflows using Make), and suggest improvements to how we work: if you see something we could do smarter or better, we want to hear you!

Depending on your location and project needs, we could also ask you to join us in person somewhere to help set up and run a client event.

But above all, you will be comfortable with the fact that things might evolve and look different a year from now. We’ll always involve you in conversations about change insofar as it affects your work.

Requirements

EXPERIENCE You have several years of relevant experience in roles where you kept things running smoothly behind the scene: operations, project management/coordination, executive support, or similar roles (whether paid or voluntary). That could be in professional services firms of any size, in a consultancy, creative agency, nonprofit, startup, or something else entirely. What matters most is that you’ve done this kind of work before and can show how you made things work better, looking crisp and professional.

EDUCATION In principle we’re looking for someone at a Masters degree level, although your skills and portfolio will count for more than your formal education.

HARD SKILLS

• Project management and coordination
  • Confident use of modern project management tools (e.g. Asana, Airtable, Notion)
  • Timeline and workflow design
  • Ability to track, follow up, and ensure nothing falls through the cracks
• Tech and systems fluency
  • High proficiency with tools designed to make work feel like it’s 2025 (e.g. Google Calendar, Drive, Harvest, Loom, Fathom, Calendly…), and eagerness to learn new tools in future
  • Experience with/understanding of online meeting tools to prepare and help run online meetings (e.g. Zoom, Teams, Mural, Miro…)
  • Experience with/understanding of CRM setup, tagging, contact management (e.g. HubSpot)
  • An understanding of what AI is good for, what it’s not good for, and the ability to use it ethically
  • Basic troubleshooting and systems improvement, including with no-code tools (e.g. Make)
• Business administration
  • Invoicing and receipt filing
  • Preparation and review of key business documents (e.g. contracts, commercial proposals…)
  • Keeping a shared drive organised clearly and logically
• Communications support
  • Impeccable business English (fluent level)
  • Strong writing, editing, and formatting skills (e.g. for slide decks, newsletters, LinkedIn posts)
  • Visual sense for document polish (layout, branding, consistency with visual guidelines)
  • Experience scheduling and coordinating with clients internationally

SOFT SKILLS

• Proactivity and ownership
  • Have a proven sense of initiative
  • Anticipate clients’ and our team’s needs
  • Comfortable working independently, being self-driven and accountable for progress and completion
  • Enjoy freedom in how you organise your work
• Attention to detail
  • Ability to zoom in on details and see how systems connect
  • Catch errors before others do (or worse, before they reach a client)
  • Understand how small touches (e.g. document polish, file naming) create professionalism
  • Believe that how we work matters just as much as what we deliver
• Calm and clarity under pressure
  • Organised and steady, even when juggling multiple projects and moving parts
  • Able to bring clarity and grounding to the team and to clients, even in times of stress
• Curiosity and learning orientation
  • Genuinely excited to learn new tools and ways of working
  • Open to improving processes and trying better approaches, not afraid to speak up when something can be done better
• Professionalism and discretion
  • Comfortable handling sensitive information and client-facing materials
  • Excellent judgement in communication (tone, timing, channel)
• Cross-cultural sensitivity
  • Experience working with international clients, and adapting communication accordingly
  • Comfortable in multicultural environments with a global mindset

Our offer

• 4-day work week
• Fully remote position
• Rare travel possible, depending on location and business needs
• Rate/salary range: EUR 33–44,000/year
• Some benefits may be possible depending on location

We’d prefer engaging an independent contractor (although this, too, can be discussed). Rates/salary will mainly depend on skills, experience and form of employment.

We’re interested in helping you become an ever better operations professional. After a year with us and with everything going well, you can expect to get more responsibilities – to be developed together with you.

Full job advert and how to apply: https://notion.kumquat.eu.

To apply: https://weworkremotely.com/remote-jobs/kumquat-operations-manager-to-a-small-consulting-firm