Chief Operating Officer | Exapta

theFace HR•Mcpherson, KS

5d•Onsite

About The Position

Exapta Solutions serves farmers through specialized agricultural equipment, parts, inspections, modifications, and technical expertise. We help farmers improve profitability, soil health, and long-term sustainability through practical, field-tested solutions. Our customers rely on us for product knowledge, responsiveness, and dependable follow-through. Exapta is growing and needs a strong operational leader who understands agriculture, equipment, parts, warehouse flow, inventory, vendors, customer urgency, and the financial discipline required to run a product-based business well. Exapta is hiring a Chief Operating Officer to help lead the business through its next stage of growth. The COO will serve as a trusted partner to the CEO and work closely with the General Manager, Director of R&D, sales leadership, warehouse team, vendors, suppliers, external production partners, and financial partners. The Role This role is designed to strengthen the current leadership team, not work around it. The COO will help create alignment, clarify ownership, improve communication, and make sure company priorities move forward across departments. The right person will bring senior operational leadership experience in agriculture, farm equipment, equipment parts, manufacturing, warehouse operations, distribution, fulfillment, or another physical product business. This role requires someone who can lead at the executive level while staying close enough to the work to understand order flow, inventory, purchasing, vendor timelines, sales commitments, warehouse capacity, customer needs, farming seasonality, margins, cash flow, and budget assumptions. Objectives of this Role The COO will help Exapta operate with more clarity, consistency, accountability, and financial visibility. This person will translate company priorities into practical action across leadership, operations, sales, warehouse, inventory, purchasing, R&D, vendors, external production, finance, HR, and administration. The COO will also help the company make stronger business decisions by connecting operations and financials. This includes understanding how sales seasonality, product demand, inventory levels, gross margin, discounts, freight, payroll, operating expenses, vendor timing, staffing, and cash flow affect profitability and planning. This is not a pure finance role, but the COO must be financially fluent enough to partner well with the controller, bookkeeper, CPA, CEO, and leadership team.

Requirements

Senior operational leadership experience as a COO, President, Integrator, Director of Operations, VP of Operations, Business Unit Leader, or similar role
Direct experience in agriculture, farm equipment, equipment parts, manufacturing, warehouse operations, distribution, fulfillment, or another physical product business
Strong understanding of inventory, purchasing, vendors, order flow, fulfillment, shipping, margin, pricing, customer urgency, and operational accountability
Working knowledge of budgets, forecasts, cash flow, gross margin, payroll, operating expenses, inventory, and financial reporting
Experience using operational and financial data to improve planning, challenge assumptions, and support better decisions
Experience leading onsite teams and partnering with leaders across operations, sales, warehouse, purchasing, R&D, finance, vendors, and customer-facing teams
Comfort coordinating with outside advisors and service providers, including accounting, HR, legal, insurance, and compliance partners
Strong judgment, direct communication, relationship-building skills, and the ability to balance accountability with support

Nice To Haves

Experience in agriculture, farming, farm equipment, ag equipment, equipment parts, dealer parts, implement dealers, warehouse operations, inventory, fulfillment, distribution, manufacturing, production, supply chain, vendor management, purchasing, budgeting, forecasting, or financial management for a product-based business.

Responsibilities

Partner with the CEO, General Manager, Director of R&D, sales leadership, warehouse team, and other leaders to create alignment, clarity, and accountability across the business
Lead the operating rhythm of the company through scorecards, KPIs, leadership meetings, planning, priority tracking, and follow-up
Strengthen operational execution across warehouse flow, inventory, purchasing, fulfillment, vendors, suppliers, and external production
Improve the connection between sales commitments, customer expectations, inventory availability, warehouse capacity, vendor timelines, and farming seasonality
Support better budgeting and forecasting by helping identify the business assumptions behind revenue, margin, inventory, staffing, expenses, and cash needs
Use operational and financial information to help leaders understand what is happening, where performance is off track, and what needs to change
Support leaders in solving root-cause issues, improving communication, developing their teams, and moving priorities forward
Help oversee administrative areas such as HR, compliance, contracts, insurance, legal coordination, and outside professional relationships as needed
Build the leadership capacity needed for the CEO to step further out of day-to-day operations over time