Chief Operating Officer

Yellow Brick Road Early Childhood Development Center•Plymouth, MN

About The Position

Yellow Brick Road (YBR) is a growing, multi-state early childhood education platform backed by Avathon Capital. Our mission is simple and powerful: to put good humans into the world and leave it better than we found it. The Chief Operating Officer plays a central role in bringing this mission to life every day by building strong systems, developing great leaders, and ensuring our schools operate with excellence, care, and integrity. The Chief Operating Officer (COO) is a critical enterprise leader responsible for translating strategy into execution across a growing, multi-site early childhood education platform. This role owns day-to-day operations, drives performance through data and disciplined operating rhythms, and builds scalable systems that support quality, growth, and culture. The COO partners closely with the CEO and executive team to ensure schools are operating at the highest levels of educational quality, family experience, financial performance, and team engagement, while preparing the organization for continued organic growth and acquisitions.

Requirements

10+ years of senior operational leadership in multi-site organizations
Proven ability to lead large, distributed teams
Strong track record of data-driven decision making
Experience scaling operations in growth environments
Ability to travel regularly between schools across multiple states, including overnight travel as needed (up to 50% of time)

Nice To Haves

Early Childhood Education or education-adjacent leadership experience
Private equity-backed or high-growth platform experience
Experience integrating acquisitions

Responsibilities

Lead all school-level and regional operations across a multi-location footprint
Build scalable operating models that support growth while maintaining quality and compliance
Clarify decision rights and accountability across regional and center leadership
Ensure operational readiness for new openings, acquisitions, and integrations
Design and lead a disciplined operating cadence grounded in KPIs and action plans
Own dashboards across enrollment, staffing, retention, quality, and financial performance
Translate data into insight and coach leaders to use metrics effectively
Partner with Finance, HR, and Technology to maintain a single source of truth
Build a high-performance, values-aligned culture rooted in trust and accountability
Coach and develop Regional Directors and School Leaders
Champion leadership development, succession planning, and talent pipelines
Model leadership behaviors aligned with mission and values
Ensure consistent delivery of high-quality early childhood education
Maintain regulatory compliance and licensing standards
Balance efficiency with child outcomes, teacher support, and family trust
Partner with the CEO on strategy, org design, and scaling decisions
Support M&A through operational diligence and integration
Represent operations with the Board and capital partners