Director of Operations

Gathern is a Saudi Arabia-based alternative accommodation marketplace connecting guests and hosts through a digital platform. Operating at the intersection of hospitality and technology, the business depends on strong operational execution to deliver a high-quality experience for both sides of the marketplace and to turn performance into a reliable driver of growth.

As Director of Operations, you will bring together Content Operations, Contact Centers, and Quality under one accountable operating model. This role is focused on building a disciplined, data-led function that improves customer and host outcomes, strengthens operational consistency, and gives leadership clear visibility into the levers that shape marketplace performance.

Responsibilities

• Own the operational KPI tree and deliver monthly and annual targets for customer satisfaction, complaints per reservation, guest rating, destination search conversion, occupancy of active listings, and unit activation.
• Set, defend, and re-base targets with Strategy and the CSO, ensuring every KPI is instrumented, clearly defined, and scoreable.
• Run the monthly Operations performance cycle and present results, root causes, and action plans to the Executive Committee.
• Own contact-center service levels, including first response time, first contact resolution, average resolution time, and reopened tickets.
• Restore and maintain first contact resolution at or above 80% through root-cause analysis of repeat-contact drivers, agent enablement, and process redesign.
• Manage capacity, scheduling, quality monitoring, and outsourced service partners while reducing cost to serve per booking without compromising resolution quality.
• Own listing content completeness, photo quality, and destination content readiness across the portfolio.
• Scale proven content interventions across destinations, including initiatives that improve click-through and booking performance.
• Set and enforce host content standards with clear controls and consequences.
• Own the unit onboarding and activation journey, including activation rate, time to activate, and time to first reservation with clear SLAs.
• Close the gap between activation and occupancy by partnering with Commercial and Product on destination readiness.
• Run the quality assurance framework across both the guest and host journey.
• Lead, develop, and structure the three function teams, building capability and succession across them.
• Partner with Product on operational defects that require product fixes, including sorting, visibility, and claims.
• Partner with Data & Analytics to close instrumentation gaps and automate departmental reporting.
• Transform the team into the center of operational excellence.

Requirements

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE

• Bachelor’s degree; a postgraduate qualification is an advantage.
• Ten or more years in operations, including five or more leading multi-function or multi-site teams in a marketplace or e-commerce platform.
• Proven turnaround of contact-center service levels, evidenced on first contact resolution, response time, and resolution time.
• A numerate operator who owns a KPI tree, sets targets, runs a monthly performance cycle and defends the numbers to an executive audience.
• Professional fluency in Arabic and English.
• KSA or GCC market experience in a digital platform.
• Working knowledge of a defined operating approach such as weekly operating reviews, KPI trees, SLA management, root-cause routines, or Lean, Six Sigma, DMAIC, or an equivalent process-improvement discipline.
• Experience working with hosts, guests, and outsourced contact-center partners.
• Experience building automation to increase team efficiency and reduce manual work, including introducing automation or AI-assisted tooling into a contact center.

Preferred

• Experience as a transformation leader.