Vice President Operations (Southeast)

National Express • Warrenville, IL

3d

About The Position

Summit School Services companies share a strong commitment to provide the highest level of transportation safety, quality transportation, outstanding customer service and positive employee relations. Our corporate headquarters, located in Warrenville, Illinois, houses the administrative and corporate support functions for the organization. Our 250+ local customer service centers (CSCs) are supported by regional operations teams located throughout North America. Position Overview The Vice President of Operations ensures operational excellence across a geographically diverse portfolio by standardizing best practices, driving performance discipline, and building a strong leadership bench. The VP plays a critical role in shaping culture, strengthening compliance, enabling scalable growth, and ensuring that Region Managers and the locations they lead operate with clarity, alignment, and accountability. This role also serves as a strategic thought partner to the SVP, influencing enterprise priorities through operational insight and field‑driven feedback.

Requirements

• Extensive experience leading multi‑site, field‑based operations with full accountability for safety, service, and financial performance.
• Demonstrated success coaching and developing experienced leaders, with a strong track record of building bench strength.
• Deep operational judgment, particularly in safety, labor relations, and risk mitigation within complex, regulated, or service‑intensive environments.
• Ability to travel extensively across the assigned geography to maintain strong field engagement.
• Field‑first mindset with strong operational credibility and hands‑on leadership style.
• Direct, fair, and decisive, capable of holding leaders accountable while building trust and partnership.
• Strategic thinker with disciplined execution skills, capable of balancing long‑term vision with immediate operational needs.
• Calm under pressure, able to navigate crises and high‑stakes issues while maintaining alignment and focus.
• Must reside in FL, TN, LA, MS or MD

Responsibilities

• Driving overall operational performance across regions, ensuring results meet or exceed standards for safety, service delivery, labor stability, cost controls, and profitability.
• Establishing consistency by standardizing operational processes and ensuring best practices are implemented and sustained across every location.
• Preparing regions for scale—ensuring readiness for new contracts, expansions, and customer‑driven growth by proactively addressing operational gaps and resource needs.
• Leading stabilization and turnaround efforts in underperforming regions, deploying targeted remediation plans, and ensuring accountability for rapid improvement.
• Develop a growth-mindset with General Managers and teams to ensure local opportunities are identified and implemented.
• Coaching and developing Region Managers through structured performance expectations, regular 1:1 engagement, and clear feedback mechanisms.
• Fostering a culture rooted in people‑first leadership, safety, customer service, performance excellence, and continuous improvement.
• Holding Region Managers accountable for developing General Managers and CSC leadership, ensuring capable pipelines.
• Leading succession planning for Region Manager and General Manager roles, identifying high‑potential leaders and supporting their development.
• Converting the Company’s direction, policies and processes into clear regional action plans with measurable objectives and execution milestones.
• Ensuring initiatives and standards are deployed consistently with strong change‑management support and follow‑through.
• Serving as the escalation leader for complex operational, labor, safety, or service issues, enabling rapid resolution and protecting the customer experience.
• Prioritizing and filtering issues to shield the SVP from unnecessary operational noise, elevating only high‑impact concerns.
• Conducting regular site visits to assess operational health, engage teams, and reinforce performance expectations.
• Building trust‑based relationships with customers to exceed expectations and identify opportunities for additional business growth.
• Strengthening credibility with location leaders and frontline supervisors through transparent communication and partnership.
• Working collaboratively with Safety, HR, Labor, Operations Improvement and other support functions to ensure compliance and maintain operational excellence.

Benefits

• We offer medical, dental, vision, basic life insurance coverage, holiday pay, and PTO accrual.
• Additionally, employees are able to enroll in a retirement savings plan.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Executive
• Education Level: No Education Listed