Head of Operations

What This Role Is:

Every year, hundreds of thousands of students across India decide they want to study abroad. They choose a destination, find a counselor or agent, start an application, and then enter a process that, for most of them, is opaque, slow, and full of friction. Documents go missing. Deadlines are missed. University portals time out. Applications that should take days take weeks.

At Manifest Global, the student placements function is the engine that makes this work at scale. Across destinations (UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and beyond), thousands of student applications move through a system that has to be fast, accurate, and consistent, every intake cycle. Application preparation, submission, tagging, tracking, university coordination, and invoicing all have to run cleanly for the business to convert at the rate it needs to.

The Head of Operations is the operational authority for the student placements function across Manifest Global. You will own the full application lifecycle, the team that executes it, the metrics that measure it, and the processes that hold it together when volume is high and timelines are tight. This is a leadership role for someone who has built operations in high-volume environments before and wants that foundation to be the launchpad for building the central operating infrastructure for a multi-brand, multi-country group that is still expanding.

What Makes This Role Different:

The student placements function spans multiple brands and multiple destinations. The volume is real, the commercial stakes are direct, and the infrastructure is still being actively built. You are inheriting a function that works and being asked to make it scale.

The Manifest ecosystem feeding this pipeline includes Cialfo's school network, BridgeU's international school relationships, Kaaiser's counselor and agent network, and Explore's university partnerships. The person in this seat has visibility across all of it and the authority to build operational infrastructure that works across the full group.

Where This Function Is Going:

The student placements function is not a back-office operation. It is the growth engine of the Manifest group, converting the demand network (2,000+ schools via Cialfo and BridgeU) and the supply network (1,000+ university partnerships via Kaaiser and Explore) into revenue.

The mandate is expanding on four fronts:

• Multi-brand operating hub. This function is being built as the central operations backbone for the entire group, serving Cialfo, Kaaiser, and every brand that joins the portfolio.
• D2C expansion. Manifest is preparing to enter the direct-to-consumer segment. The operational chassis for that business will be designed and run from this seat.
• New business integration. The operational playbook for bringing new businesses into the group, including their teams, processes, systems, and pipelines, will be owned here.
• AI-native operations. The operations unit is being rebuilt as an AI-native function, and this role leads that transformation. The target is an operation whose cost-to-serve and turnaround times improve as volume grows, instead of one that scales by adding headcount.

What You Own:

The full student application lifecycle

• Own end-to-end business operations across all major study destinations, for all source markets.
• Ensure every stage runs with the speed, accuracy, and consistency that high-volume placements require, including at peak intake.

Group-level operating infrastructure

• Design the central operations hub that serves all Manifest brands, with shared workflows, systems, and standards.
• Own the operational readiness and integration of new business lines, including the upcoming D2C business, from process design through steady-state handover.
• Partner with group leadership on capacity planning, prioritisation, and the operational implications of expansion strategy.

Operational infrastructure and process design

• Design and implement scalable, structured workflows that absorb increasing application volumes without degrading quality or turnaround times.
• Define and enforce clear SLAs, quality benchmarks, and processing standards across all destinations and team members.
• Identify bottlenecks early and fix them systematically.
• Lead the AI transformation of the operations unit, owning the roadmap and redesigning roles, workflows, and team structure around AI.

Metrics, data, and performance

• Build dashboards and reporting that give the business a real-time view of pipeline movement and operational health.
• Use data to manage capacity, prioritisation, and risk proactively.

Team leadership

• Lead and develop the student placement operations team, setting clear roles, responsibilities, and performance expectations.
• Develop the team to perform at peak intake without degrading quality.

University and partner coordination

• Work closely with university partners, counsellors, and partner teams to align on submission standards, timelines, and documentation requirements.
• Reduce friction at every handoff point so applications move cleanly from start to finish.

What Success Looks Like:

You will start by building a complete picture of the current operational infrastructure, including what is working, what is breaking, and where the bottlenecks are. From there, turnaround times will be faster, submission accuracy will be higher, and the team will have clearer roles and stronger capability.

Over time, the student placements operation will be a competitive advantage: a function that processes at scale without errors, converts at the rates the business needs, and runs consistently across intake cycles without heroics from individuals.

What You Bring:

• You have spent twelve to fifteen years in operations, a meaningful part of it in student placements, international admissions, or study abroad.
• You understand the application lifecycle end to end, from having run it, and know how to build systems that do not depend on one person.
• You have led teams in high-volume environments and built functions where accountability is real and performance expectations are clear.
• You are metrics-driven and use data to make decisions, including identifying which lifecycle stage is the constraint.
• You are comfortable with ambiguity and with building, since there is no finished playbook to inherit.

Why Manifest:

Manifest Global is building the infrastructure for global human capital mobility, connecting students, schools, universities, and employers across 50+ countries. Its portfolio includes Cialfo (AI-powered college counseling, 2,000+ schools), BridgeU (university guidance for international schools), Kaaiser (study abroad counseling since 1997 across India and Southeast Asia), EduGo Abroad, FlowAI, and Explore (AI-powered university outreach, 1,000+ university partners). The company has raised $80M and describes itself as still early.