Vice President of Operations & Delivery

Mickai® is building SIOS, our Sovereign Intelligence Operating System, designed to give organisations advanced AI capability while keeping their data, infrastructure and intelligence under their own control.
SIOS has reached MVP stage. The core platform and architecture are built, and we are now working with design partners as we move towards production deployment.
Our technology is designed for customer-controlled infrastructure, including on-premise, offline and air-gapped environments.
Mickai currently has 104 filed UK patent applications containing 2,340 formal claims across technologies including multi-brain orchestration, sovereign memory, offline AI, hardware identity, cryptographic audit and agent safety.
As we enter the next stage of the company, we are strengthening the leadership team responsible for turning technical and commercial momentum into disciplined execution.
THE ROLE
We are looking for an experienced Vice President of Operations & Delivery to take ownership of operational execution across Mickai.
This is a senior leadership role working directly with the CEO and alongside our CTO, compliance, governance, growth and engineering functions.
The role sits at the intersection of strategy and execution.
You will be responsible for making sure priorities become plans, plans have accountable owners, dependencies are resolved and commitments are delivered.
As Mickai moves from MVP towards production with design partners, we need someone who can bring structure and operational discipline without introducing unnecessary bureaucracy.
You should be equally comfortable in an executive discussion and getting directly involved when something needs to move.
WHAT YOU'LL OWN
• Company-wide operational planning and execution
• Translating CEO and leadership priorities into measurable delivery plans
• Cross-functional coordination across engineering, compliance, governance, commercial and growth
• Production-readiness planning and delivery oversight
• Design-partner onboarding and operational delivery
• Programme and project governance
• Milestones, dependencies, risks and escalation
• Leadership reporting and operational dashboards
• Internal processes and operating cadence
• Resource and capacity planning
• Identifying operational bottlenecks and removing them
• Ensuring decisions have clear owners, deadlines and outcomes
• Supporting supplier, partner and commercial operations
• Building repeatable processes as Mickai scales
• Helping prepare the operational organisation for customer deployments and future growth
• Maintaining execution discipline across multiple concurrent workstreams
WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR
We are looking for someone with significant experience operating within technology, SaaS, AI, infrastructure or another technically complex business.
You should have experience in several of the following:
• Senior operations leadership
• Scaling an early-stage or high-growth technology company
• Taking technology businesses from MVP into production and commercial deployment
• Programme and delivery management
• Enterprise customer or design-partner delivery
• Building operational processes from the ground up
• Working closely with engineering and technical leadership
• Cross-functional leadership
• Risk, governance and compliance environments
• Board or executive-level reporting
• Commercial operations
• Resource planning and organisational design
Experience within AI, cybersecurity, enterprise infrastructure, defence, government, healthcare, financial services or another highly regulated environment would be particularly valuable.
You do not need to be an AI engineer.
You do need to understand how complex technology organisations operate and be capable of working effectively with highly technical teams.
THE PERSON
We are looking for an operator.
Someone who sees a problem and takes ownership of getting it resolved.
You should be able to bring clarity when multiple teams, priorities and dependencies are moving simultaneously.
You will need excellent judgement, strong communication skills and the confidence to challenge decisions constructively when execution is at risk.
We particularly value people who:
• Take ownership and follow through
• Are highly organised without becoming bureaucratic
• Can move comfortably between strategic and operational work
• Communicate clearly with technical and non-technical teams
• Know when to escalate and when to solve
• Can establish accountability across senior teams
• Remain effective when priorities move quickly
• Understand that early-stage leadership requires rolling your sleeves up
WHERE WE ARE
Mickai is not at idea stage.
SIOS has reached MVP.
The core platform is built.
We are working with design partners as we move towards production.
The operational challenge now is ensuring that engineering, governance, compliance, commercial activity and customer delivery move together as the company enters its next stage.
THE OPPORTUNITY
This is an opportunity to join Mickai's senior leadership team at an important point in the company's development.
The successful candidate will work directly with the CEO and have significant responsibility for how the organisation operates and executes.
Mickai is currently at pre-seed stage. For the initial six-month period, this position is offered on a sweat-equity basis rather than a conventional cash salary.
The equity package will be meaningful and structured to reflect the seniority of the position, level of commitment, responsibilities and early-stage risk being taken.
The intention is for the position to transition to a competitive salaried executive role following the initial six-month period, subject to the company's funding and commercial position.
Full equity terms will be discussed directly with suitable candidates and formally documented.
WHO SHOULD APPLY
This role could suit an experienced:
• VP of Operations
• Head of Operations
• Operations Director
• VP of Business Operations
• Programme Director
• Head of Delivery
• Chief of Staff with substantial operational ownership
You may have previously worked as a COO, but we are hiring for operational capability rather than title.
We care about what you have built, scaled and delivered.
HOW TO APPLY
Apply through LinkedIn with your CV.
Where possible, please include a short note covering:
• The most complex organisation or programme you have helped operate
• An example of something you took from strategy through to successful delivery
• Your experience working with technical or engineering teams
• Your experience within startup, scale-up or high-growth environments
Mickai®
Sovereign Intelligence. Your Infrastructure. Your Control.

Work arrangement
No