Job Description

As Operations Lead, you are the internal backbone. You translate vision, ambition, and strategy into clear systems, structures, and ways of working. You make complexity manageable, create predictability in a fast-paced environment, and ensure the organization runs smoothly operationally, legally, financially, and structurally.

This role exists to bring clarity, control, and continuity as the company scales in clients, people, and complexity. You take responsibility for how the organisation functions as a whole: how decisions are made, how information flows, how risks are managed, how money is protected, and how people can perform at their best without unnecessary friction.

You report directly to the Founder/CEO and act as the bridge between leadership, finance, people, legal, and delivery. You bring calm, structure, and accountability to a high-tempo creative environment. 

Responsibilities

1. Business & Operational Ownership

• Own day-to-day operations across the entire organisation

• Design and maintain clear workflows, roles, and accountability structures

• Act as the internal escalation point for operational issues

• Ensure continuity, predictability, and risk control as the company scales

• Reduce operational friction and founder dependency

2. People, Contracts & Structure

• Own people operations: contracts, roles, salary bands, onboarding/offboarding

• Work with leadership on org design, performance frameworks, and growth planning

• Ensure all people-related data and documentation is structured and accessible

• Partner with external payroll and HR vendors

3. Finance & Commercial Operations

• Partner closely with Finance (budgets, margins, cashflow, forecasting)

• Oversee project financial hygiene: scopes, change orders, invoicing logic

• Ensure operational readiness for audits, procurement, and client scrutiny

• Maintain clarity on where money is made, lost, or at risk

4. Legal & Risk Management

• Own operational legal processes (in coordination with external lawyers)

• Review contracts, NDAs, MSAs, SOWs before CEO sign-off

• Track all active contracts, vendors, and obligations

• Ensure project-level legal compliance and documentation

5. Systems & Information Architecture

• Own internal systems landscape (PM, CRM, finance, people data)

• Ensure data is accurate, findable, and reliable

• Drive improvements or migrations where tools no longer scale

• Make sure leadership always has a clear operational overview

6. Transition & Stabilisation

• Lead the transition of responsibilities from outgoing leadership

• Build a clean operational inventory: vendors, contracts, tools, processes

• Create documentation that makes the business less founder-dependent

Who Are You?

• 8–12+ years experience in operations, general management, or COO-type roles

• Has scaled or helped scale a company through complexity

• Comfortable operating between creative teams and hard business realities

• Calm under pressure, structured in chaos

• High trust, high ownership, low ego

• Strong communicator — you can say “no” clearly and respectfully

• Experience in agencies, studios, tech, consulting, or scale-ups is a strong plus

What This Is (and Is Not)

This IS:

• A leadership role with real ownership

• A chance to design the operating backbone of a growing company

• A seat close to the Founder and strategic decision-making

This is NOT:

• A project manager role

• A pure HR role

• A finance-only role

• A passive “process police” function

What We Offer

• A full-time position in a culture-first creative team.

• The chance to contribute with new ideas and help shape how we work.

• Work from our 1,000m² creative space in Amsterdam.

• A competitive salary with a pension plan.

• Standard benefits you’d expect, like holiday allowance, team events, and growth opportunities.

Who Are We 

Provoke is a creative research laboratory and production house. We specialize in Research, Production, and Campaign Strategy, partnering with brands like FIFA, Nike, Jordan, Alpha Industries, Amazon Prime, and Snipes to transform creative ideas into reality.

Research is our foundation. For over a decade, we’ve conducted deep cultural research across 20+ European cities to decode youth, sports, fashion, and music culture. This allows us to understand the why: ensuring every strategy is rooted in relevance and cultural truth.

Campaign Strategy is how we create focus and momentum. We translate research into clear strategic direction by defining narratives, audiences and moments that matter, turning brand ambition into work that lands at the right time.

Production is where strategy comes to life. From fast social-first content to large-scale brand campaigns or live experiences, we produce sharp and culturally credible work, built for impact. Our trusted creative and production talents combine strong concepts with flawless execution.

Aside from working with world-class clients, Provoke is building its own media titles, events, and cultural experiences from our 1,000m² creative compound in Amsterdam West. Think music, fashion, sports, and tech colliding in one place.

We value doers over talkers. Execution over promise. Action over fluff. If you care about making ideas real and making them count, you’ll feel right at home at Provoke.

NOTE: an incorrect email address was previously listed in this vacancy.

we kindly ask you to resend your application to recruitment@provoke.nl.