Chief Operating Officer

Loyal

Chief Operating Officer at Loyal, a veterinary medicine startup developing longevity drugs for dogs. Leading commercial launch and operational execution in a high-growth environment.

Posted 5/29/2026full-timeRemote • 🇺🇸 United StatesLead💰 $315,000 - $425,000 per yearWebsite

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Owning the operational execution of Loyal's first commercial launch in 2027 - partnering with organizations including Commercial, CMC/Supply Chain, Veterinary Medicine, and Creative to ensure a launch that performs commercially and earns a brand customers love.
Leading Finance, People, Program Leadership, Commercial, Customer Service, and both Commercial and Internal/Platform Engineering. You will directly manage the leaders running each function, and build/scale the organizations where the organization is not yet built out.
Scaling the company from ~70 to ~150 people with AI-leveraged efficiency — headcount growth gated to commercial milestones, not arbitrary expansion. Deploying AI tooling across ops, finance, recruiting, and customer service so leverage scales with the team.
Iterating and owning the operating cadence the company runs on — goals system, weekly and monthly business reviews, and the board prep cadence.
Owning the seam between commercial demand and technical supply — running the S&OP cadence with the CTOO so the CEO is not the integrator on day-to-day operational decisions.
Leading product distribution platform buildout for a very complicated and regulated flow (prescription drug distribution), in collaboration with our engineering and commercial leadership.
Building a customer service organization that scales with launch and that creates a pharma brand customers genuinely love.
Acting as the company-wide problem solver — proactively identifying and resolving operational issues across functions before they become roadblocks.
Freeing the CEO to focus ~80% of her time on external work (board, investors, partnerships, science narrative, brand) by the time of launch.

Requirements

What you’ll need

10+ years of operating experience at high-growth startups where you've directly built and scaled the operations function through inflection points, including at least one company in the 50–300 headcount range.
Both startup AND scale experience. You've built v1 systems from scratch and iterated them to v3 — not pure startup, not pure big-co.
Technical credibility. You've led engineering, data, or other technical disciplines that you weren't personally an expert in. You can explain complex ideas simply and hold credibility in technical reviews. Bio background is not required but you should be excited to build basic bio and drug development fluency.
Commercially literate. You will manage our existing Commercial executive and help build the team around them. You don't need a career commercial background, but you do need to credibly challenge and coach commercial leadership. You should have good taste or be self-aware that you do not - and be able to hire around that.
First-principles thinker. You drill quickly to the load-bearing question in disciplines you don't fully know yet.
Low ego, high confidence, high integrity. You suppress your ego to execute the founder's vision, and you have the bravery to push back when you think she's wrong.
AI-leveraged operator. You use AI tools in your own workflow today and have a point of view on deploying them across the org for compounding leverage.
Concise, high-information-density communicator. You write well and default to async written briefs over meetings.
Strong manager and developer of people. You set clear expectations, hold people accountable, and your direct reports get measurably better at their jobs within months. You do not shy away from giving direct feedback quickly and are impatient with mediocre performance in yourself and your team. You are not corporate.
High agency, exceptional follow-through. You track many disparate things at once and nothing falls through. You build systems and processes that outlast you. You work hard.
Mission-aligned. Whether for dogs, longevity, building an aging pharma, or building a consumer pharma brand people love — this matters to you for reasons that pre-date this job posting.

Benefits

Comp & perks

Full-coverage health insurance — medical, dental, and vision — for you and your dependents
$1,000 home office equipment stipend
$1,200/year learning budget for books, courses, etc.
$250/month wellness budget for gym, cleaners, spa, food, etc.
All 3-day weekends are turned into 4-day weekends
Unlimited vacation and paid holidays
Paw-ternity leave — adopt a dog and get a day off with your new family member
Competitive salary
Company equity options grant for new hires

ATS Keywords

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Hard Skills & Tools

operational executionscaling operationsbuilding systemstechnical credibilitycommercial literacyfirst-principles thinkingAI deploymentproblem-solvingproject managementdata analysis

Soft Skills

low egohigh confidencehigh integrityconcise communicationstrong managementpeople developmenthigh agencyexceptional follow-throughadaptabilitycollaboration