Job Description:

Head of Operations 

Kolkata (On-site)   |   Reports to Director   |   CTC: discussed at interview

Role Overview

We are hiring a Head of Operations to own the end-to-end backbone of a luxury fashion house — production, inventory, planning, and dispatch coordination. This is the senior-most operations role in the company, reporting directly to the Director, and responsible for the full pipeline from raw material to packed export shipment.

The role exists to do three things: protect quality as we scale, build the systems that replace tribal knowledge, and turn order-wise production into a repeatable, predictable engine. The person we are looking for has already done this once — at a comparable scale, in a comparable product category, for international buyers.

Reporting & Team

Reports to: Director 

Direct reports: Production Manager(s), Planning Executive, Packing & Dispatch Lead, Facility Manager

Peer coordination: QC Head, Head of Design, Head of Accounts, HR Manager, Export Documentation Executive

Team scope: Large in-house production team across stitching, hand and machine embroidery, cutting, checking, packing, dyeing, and pressing

Core Responsibilities

A) Production Management

• Own order-wise production across all garment and accessory categories
• Translate design and sample handoffs into production-ready specs, BOMs, and floor instructions
• Ensure every order — regardless of size — meets spec, timeline, and finish standards
• Run daily and weekly production reviews with Production Managers; own bottleneck resolution
• Build SOPs for every repeated process; convert tribal knowledge into documented workflows

B) Inventory & Raw Material Management

• Own inventory across three stages: raw material (fabrics, threads, trims, packaging), work-in-progress, and finished goods
• Build reorder protocols and safety stock logic for core raw materials — avoid both stockouts and dead inventory
• Coordinate with Head of Design on seasonal material planning and long-lead sourcing
• Monthly physical stock audits; reconcile against book inventory; drive accuracy to 98% and above

C) Planning & Capacity

• Build the annual production calendar aligned with the seasonal order cycle — orders placed at trade shows typically ship four to five months later
• Capacity planning: what can we deliver, by when, without quality compromise? Say no early; do not miss late
• Order prioritisation — manage competing urgencies across a multi-account wholesale base
• Plan with a 20% buffer: plan for 18 to deliver 15

D) Quality Standards (in partnership with QC Head)

• Set production-side quality standards; QC Head enforces them
• Own the root cause of every quality failure traced back to production execution — cutting, stitching, embroidery
• Build quality into the process, not the inspection — reduce rework rate quarter over quarter

E) Systems, Data & Digitisation

• Lead the ERP implementation — current stack is a mix of Google Sheets and paper; target horizon is nine months
• Own daily production dashboards: WIP, order status, delay risk, capacity utilisation
• Build management visibility — the Director should be able to see any order's status without having to ask

F) Team Building & Leadership

• Hire, develop, and retain floor supervisors and middle management on the production side
• Activate your own professional network in the first 90 days to bring strong candidates for supervisor, specialised tailor, and embroidery roles — all HoD hires at this company are expected to contribute direct hires
• Coach Production Managers; build successor depth so the function does not depend on you alone
• Partner with HR Manager on blue-collar sourcing and retention (statutory compliance — PF, ESI, CLRA — is owned by HR)

G) Buyer & Order Coordination

• Interface with international wholesale buyers on production timelines, technical-pack clarifications, sampling rounds, and pre-shipment communications
• Own end-to-end visibility on every live order — the Head of Operations should be able to answer the status of any order in the house within minutes, without making phone calls
• Coordinate with Export Documentation Executive to ensure paperwork readiness aligns with production completion dates
• Coordinate with Packing & Dispatch Lead to ensure finished goods flow cleanly from floor to shipment — no bottlenecks at handoff
• Own the internal information system that keeps Sales (Director), Accounts, Design, and Export Docs on the same page
• Close the feedback loop from post-dispatch issues (damages, customs queries, short shipments) back into production discipline

H) Cost & P&L Ownership

• Own production cost per garment, fabric utilisation %, wastage %, and labour cost variance
• Drive month-on-month improvement against benchmarks set in the first 90 days
• Partner with Head of Accounts on costing reviews and margin protection

Ideal Candidate Background

Experience

• 8+ years in production or operations leadership within apparel, fashion, or soft-goods manufacturing
• Direct experience managing order-wise, small-batch, high-mix production (not bulk)
• Hands-on with our fabric base: silk, high-quality cotton, and linen — mandatory. Bulk denim or knitwear backgrounds will not translate.
• Managed floor teams of 100+ workers directly; ran multi-function operations end-to-end
• Experience with export-oriented manufacturing — understands the discipline of international delivery commitments
• Working knowledge of ERP or digital production management systems; hands-on implementation experience is a strong bonus

Education

• Graduate degree required
• NIFT, NIFT-TEA, IIT, or equivalent production, textile, or industrial engineering background strongly preferred
• Lean or Six Sigma certification is a plus, not a requirement

Non-Negotiables

• Has built SOPs from scratch, not inherited them
• Has personally handled raw material planning with seasonal sourcing cycles
• Can read a spec sheet, walk onto a floor, and identify what is wrong within thirty minutes
• Has managed through a scaling phase (1x to 2x+ volume growth) without quality degradation
• Bengali language fluency — mandatory for floor management. Hindi and English in addition.

Key Skills & Attributes

Hard / Technical Skills

• Production planning and capacity modelling — spreadsheet-fluent, ERP-literate
• Raw material and inventory management — reorder logic, stock reconciliation, dead-stock control
• BOM construction and costing awareness
• Quality systems: AQL, defect classification, inline vs end-line checks
• Digital reporting — dashboards, daily production reports, exception tracking
• SOP writing and rollout

Soft Skills

• Systems thinker — sees the whole pipeline, not just individual stations
• Calm under pressure; does not escalate problems upward, closes them
• Firm but humane with floor teams — luxury production depends on artisan wellbeing and retention
• Writes clearly, speaks directly, no politics
• Owns outcomes — never “it is not my department” on anything that touches the product leaving the building

KPIs (Monthly / Quarterly)

1) Delivery Performance

• On-time dispatch rate: 95%+ of orders shipped by committed date
• Order fill rate: 95%+ — no short shipments on committed quantities
• Delay warning discipline: 100% of at-risk orders flagged 14+ days before deadline

2) Quality & Rework

• First-pass quality rate (QC acceptance on first check): 90%+
• Rework rate: quarter-over-quarter reduction of 5–10%
• Zero repeat defects on the same failure mode within a quarter

3) Inventory & Planning Discipline

• Raw material stockout incidents: ≤1 per quarter
• Dead stock (raw material + finished goods aged over 180 days): <5% of total inventory value
• Monthly physical stock vs book accuracy: 98%+

4) Team & Systems Build

• SOPs documented and in use: 20 core SOPs by month 6; 40 by month 12
• Hires contributed from own network: 5+ qualified candidates in first 90 days
• ERP / digital systems milestone: implementation plan approved by month 3; pilot live by month 6

5) Cost & Efficiency

• Production cost per unit variance from plan: within ±3%
• Fabric utilisation %: benchmark set by month 3; quarter-over-quarter improvement
• Labour productivity (units-per-worker-per-day): benchmark set by month 3; improved 5–10% by month 12

Knockout Questions (Ask Before CV Review)

All applicants must answer these in writing before any CV is reviewed. No exceptions.

1. How many years have you led production or operations in an export-oriented fashion or apparel setup working with silk, high-quality cotton, or linen? 
2. What is the largest floor team you have managed directly? 
3. Have you personally managed order-wise, small-batch, high-mix production (not bulk)? 
4. Are you fluent in Bengali?
5. Do you have hands-on experience working within an ERP or digital production management system? Have you been part of an implementation? [working knowledge required; implementation experience is a strong bonus]
6. What is your earliest possible joining date? [must be within 45 days]
7. What is your last drawn CTC, and what is your expected CTC? [for calibration]