Director of Launch Operations (Hospitality)

The Role

Kasa is seeking a seasoned, entrepreneurial leader to join us as the Director overseeing our Launch Operations team. This is a dynamic team that manages the full scope of Kasa's new property openings and transitions including visioning, design, planning, installation, and launch phases across the company's rapidly growing portfolio of boutique hotels, apartment-hotels , and vacation rentals.

The Director will set the strategy for all of Kasa's launches to optimize the team's quality, precision, and efficiency, facilitating successful property launches that are focused on smooth and streamlined transitions that satisfy Kasa’s property partners and pave the way for delivering exceptional guest experiences.

The role is a key contributor to Kasa's company-level operational strategy and sits within both the operations leadership and company-level leadership teams. While this role is remote, travel is a crucial part of the LaunchOps function. This role requires extensive and regular travel in order to support prospective deals and active launches. You will likely be on the road 3+ times each month, often traveling to more than one city in a given week. You must be willing to travel “last minute” as the needs of the business arise.

About the Team

This role is a member of Kasa's Leadership Team that is responsible for managing the full end-to-end delivery of our "rarely seen but always felt" tech-enabled hospitality to guests in dozens of cities across the US.

In this role you will work very cross-functionally, including consistent interaction with our Real Estate, Portfolio Operations, Guest Experience, Hospitality Programs, Marketing + Distribution, Regulatory, Finance, Brand and Design teams, ensuring that our launch efforts are coordinated with Kasa's broader growth and revenue performance objectives.

Day in the Life of the Director of LaunchOps

The LaunchOps team covers a wide span of different responsibilities which include:

• Transition of Kasa’s growth pipeline into property launches, in close partnership with real estate
• Build strong relationships with Partners, collaborating across budgets, negotiations, launch timelines and scope of work
• Design, visioning and budgeting development for late stage pipeline of prospective new properties including FFE/OSE scope, install costs, construction costs, signage implementation, etc
• End-to-end pre-opening project planning and management for all launches and expansions, inclusive of launch scope creation, timeline and scheduling
• Ownership of the Launch Critical Path and Project Management Tracker. Requires strong stakeholder alignment across Regionalized Operations, Marketing & Distribution, Finance, Brand and Design
• Vendor management for creation of custom designs, sourcing and on-site logistics
• On-the-ground installation of furnishings, equipment, and technology into every Kasa unit and property through capacity planning (including contract labor)
• Full coordination of property move-outs
• Full task force oversight, inclusive of smooth set up of utilities, insurance, wifi, security, and vendor services for each launch
• Collection and documentation of operational details of each property using Kasa's proprietary data models
• Consistently delivering on exceptional guest experiences, from the very first day

Across these many disciplines, you will be held to three primary goals:

• Quality - measured through the experiences of the first guests who stay at each property, as well as the Net Promoter Score of the property partners and applicable building residents
• Efficiency - measured through our ability to meet or beat target budgets and timelines and exceed industry standards
• Flexibility - measured through the breadth of different scales (number of units) and scopes (degree of renovation/design, type of unit) that the team can confidently be deployed against

As a team leader, your primary goal is to ensure that your department is focused on the most important priorities that will help achieve the above goals. Your days will break down into four equally important areas of focus:

• Setting a strategic direction - understand our company-level strategy by working with your cross-functional leadership team peers and translate this strategy into the projects, priorities, and initiatives within your team
• Working alongside the team to drive execution - roll up your sleeves, get your hands dirty and observe how things translate at the ground floor, whether this means joining a new build or launch, jumping into a weekly project planning meeting, or chatting with guests at a grand opening event to ensure high-quality stays. A key part of this role is getting things done and on-the-ground execution
• Coaching and developing your team - you constantly seek to empower, coach, develop, and hold your team members accountable to the team’s goals, priorities, and initiatives
• Leading across Kasa - getting involved in strategic and tactical ways to cross-functionally set up the Launch team for success, as well as working with teams beyond LaunchOps in order to gain a more holistic appreciation for what Kasa is building, which you can take back to your department

Experience

• Many years of hands-on management experience in operations roles and experience leading multi-layered, multi-functional teams in hospitality.
• Hotel pre-opening and/or task force experience, with a proven track record of multiple successful hotel openings
• Several years in a role overseeing the launch of physical properties or facilities, preferably at a company with a rapid growth history
• Hotel project management, construction management, or procurement experience
• You are a goal-driven strategy setter, learning about all aspects of a problem statement and then proposing a clear and achievable path forward

Qualities You Embody

• You know the importance of getting on-site in order to understand how strategy collides with reality, and because it helps you to connect more deeply with your team
• You are a clear and transparent communicator. You build trust with external parties quickly and effectively. You are highly responsive, demonstrate attention to detail, and follow through on your promises.
• You are highly organized, able to effectively manage multiple projects with complex schedules at the same time
• You enjoy environments where the only constant is constant change - you are dynamic, optimistic, and adept at leading teams through rapidly evolving business environments
• Whether or not you have worked in a startup before, you have an entrepreneurial orientation and a track record of putting aside long-held norms and standards to try innovative new approaches
• You are analytically adept and inclined to "measure what matters", seeking out clear and quantitative leading indicators you can use to assess a team's performance against their goals
• You are comfortable interpreting nuanced financial data and can hold your own in managerial accounting conversations or projects to find cost efficiency
• You are transparent and direct. You have an aversion to workplace politics and always put your cards on the table and collaborate to find the best solution, even with teams who might naturally have a different priority
• You are a perceptive and empathetic developer of people - you help people understand their key strengths and weaknesses, and can create energy and cohesion in a highly diverse team. You are able to bring out the best in both "left brain" and "right brain" focused individuals
• You are obsessive about providing exceptional guest experiences and being a Hall of Fame Host
• You live our ‘Feed Two Birds with One Scone’ value and are excited to find more efficient and creative ways to utilize our limited resources
• You are willing to travel 3+ weeks a month

Plus if...

• Direct experience in hospitality, short-term rentals, or an innovative property management business. Extensive experience in project management (maybe you even have a PMP certification or equivalent educational background) and in establishing and using launch budgets for physical projects
• Meaningful experience owning a P&L
• MBA degree or commensurate management consulting or strategy experience

In one year, you will succeed at Kasa by having:

• Overseen the launch of thousands of new Kasa units on time, on budget, and with outstanding execution
• Built Kasa's launch process for hotels, apartment-hotels, multifamily apartments, and single family vacation rentals into a well oiled machine that meets the needs of Kasa's guests and property partners
• Elevated our project management capabilities into a profit center of their own, enabling us to pursue more complex launch scenarios with confidence
• Expanded the team's culture of excellence and collaboration and helped to strengthen the integration of LaunchOps with other parts of the business