Vice President of Operations | Multi-Site Waste & Environmental Services

Capital Waste Services LLC • Columbia, SC

29d • Hybrid

About The Position

Capital Waste Services (CWS) is seeking an experienced and results-driven Vice President of Operations to provide strategic leadership across its growing operations. This executive leadership position will play a critical role in driving operational excellence, strengthening safety and service performance, developing high-performing leaders, and ensuring operations are positioned to support continued growth. The ideal candidate is a hands-on, strategic operations leader who understands how to lead complex, multi-location operations while balancing safety, customer service, employee engagement, productivity, and financial performance. This is an opportunity to take on a highly visible leadership role within a growing organization and directly influence operational performance and future expansion. As Vice President of Operations, you'll have the opportunity to build teams, strengthen operations, develop leaders, drive performance, and help shape the next phase of the company's growth.

Requirements

• Significant progressive experience leading complex operations.
• Demonstrated success leading teams across multiple locations, markets, or business units.
• Strong experience managing operational budgets and financial performance.
• Proven ability to lead and develop managers and senior operational leaders.
• Demonstrated success improving operational performance, productivity, service quality, and accountability.
• Strong business and financial acumen.
• Experience working within a safety-sensitive and highly regulated operating environment.
• Ability to travel regularly to operating locations.
• Bachelor’s degree in Operations, Business, Logistics, or a related field preferred; equivalent experience may be considered.
• At least ten years of progressive waste, transportation, logistics, or field-service leadership experience, including multi-site P&L responsibility.
• Demonstrated success improving safety, service, productivity, labor performance, and operating margins.

Nice To Haves

• Leadership experience within the waste and environmental services industry is strongly preferred.
• Experience in transportation, logistics, fleet-intensive services, construction, heavy equipment, or another operationally complex industry will also be considered.
• Experience supporting organizational growth, acquisitions, integrations, or geographic expansion.
• Solid-waste collection experience across multiple lines of business.
• Experience with acquisitions, route optimization, fleet-intensive operations, and rapid market growth.

Responsibilities

• Provide strategic leadership and oversight across multiple operating locations and markets.
• Establish clear performance expectations and hold operational leaders accountable for results.
• Drive improvements in productivity, efficiency, service reliability, and overall operating performance.
• Identify operational challenges, develop solutions, and ensure effective execution of corrective action plans.
• Promote consistency and operational discipline across locations.
• Support the development and implementation of scalable processes as the organization grows.
• Lead with a safety-first mindset and promote a culture where safety is a shared responsibility.
• Partner with Safety, Human Resources, and operational leadership to strengthen safety performance and regulatory compliance.
• Monitor trends and identify opportunities to reduce operational risk.
• Ensure operational leaders maintain accountability for training, safe work practices, incident prevention, and corrective actions.
• Partner with executive leadership and Finance to establish operational budgets, forecasts, and performance objectives.
• Monitor operating expenses and identify opportunities to improve efficiency and profitability.
• Evaluate labor, overtime, fleet, maintenance, fuel, disposal, productivity, and other significant operating costs.
• Use financial and operational data to identify trends and make informed business decisions.
• Balance cost management with safety, customer service, employee needs, and long-term business objectives.
• Lead, coach, and develop operational leaders across the organization.
• Build a culture of accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
• Develop succession plans and strengthen the organization's leadership pipeline.
• Partner with Human Resources and Recruiting to support workforce planning, hiring, development, and retention.
• Identify and develop high-potential employees for expanded leadership responsibilities.
• Establish clear expectations and regularly evaluate leadership and operational performance.
• Partner with fleet and maintenance leadership to improve equipment availability, reliability, and utilization.
• Monitor fleet performance and ensure operational and maintenance teams are effectively aligned.
• Support capital planning and investment decisions involving vehicles, equipment, and operational infrastructure.
• Ensure operations consistently meet established service expectations.
• Monitor service performance and lead improvement initiatives when expectations are not being met.
• Partner with Sales and Customer Service leadership to address significant customer and service challenges.
• Ensure operational capacity and resources support customer retention and business growth.
• Partner with executive leadership on long-term operational strategy and organizational growth.
• Support operational planning for new locations, markets, service offerings, and acquisitions.
• Help integrate new operations into the organization's processes, performance expectations, and culture.
• Identify opportunities to standardize best practices and improve scalability.
• Lead major operational initiatives and organizational change efforts.

Benefits

• This is an opportunity to take on a highly visible leadership role within a growing organization and directly influence operational performance and future expansion.
• As Vice President of Operations, you'll have the opportunity to build teams, strengthen operations, develop leaders, drive performance, and help shape the next phase of the company's growth.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Executive
• Education Level: Associate degree