Business systems & ai operations lead

Glassworks London is an independent women’s fashion retailer founded in 2010, operating across retail stores, ecommerce, sourcing, product, marketing and fulfilment. We are building a more scalable, systems-led organisation with clearer ownership, better operating visibility and stronger use of AI-assisted workflows.

THE ROLE

We are looking for a highly structured Business Systems & AI Operations Lead to turn repeated work, founder-held knowledge, unclear processes and manual workflows into usable operating systems. This is not a generic admin, IT support or prompt-writing role. We need someone who can understand messy business problems, extract the logic, build practical workflows, create trackers and dashboards, support AI-assisted processes, and help teams actually use the systems. The immediate need is to reduce founder dependency by moving important workflows - including recruitment, candidate review, operating standards, meeting follow-up, retail training, ecommerce issue tracking, file management and reporting - into controlled, repeatable systems.

WORKING PATTERN / LOCATION

Full-time remote role. Applicants may be based outside the UK, including India, South Africa or Eastern Europe, but must provide reliable overlap with UK working hours.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Turn repeated founder-led workflows into clear, usable operating systems.
• Help convert AI-assisted processes into workflows that managers and team members can actually use.
• Build and maintain trackers, dashboards, templates, forms, SOPs and source-of-truth documents.
• Support recruitment workflows, candidate ledgers, screening processes, interview packs and assessment evidence.
• Create workflows that turn meetings, transcripts, notes and decisions into actions, owners, deadlines and evidence.
• Map business processes, handoffs, decision points, blockers and failure points.
• Improve file management, document control, naming, access and source-of-truth discipline.
• Support light business systems administration, access management and IT issue tracking.
• Help teams use approved AI tools safely and effectively without producing generic or uncontrolled output.
• Test workflows with users, identify adoption problems and improve the system.
• Create simple reporting that shows what is working, what is late, what is blocked and what needs a decision.

EXAMPLES OF WORKSTREAMS

• Recruitment engines and candidate review workflows;
• Retail training, quiz and release-gate trackers;
• Meeting-to-action workflows;
• HR onboarding and probation tracking;
• Ecommerce issue logs and trading dashboards;
• Product data / stock movement trackers;
• Marketing and content workflow trackers;
• AI-assisted SOP and training document workflows;
• Company file and source-of-truth organisation;
• Hardware, access and light IT issue tracking;
• Asana / Google Drive / Google Sheets / forms / dashboards.

WHAT THIS ROLE DOES NOT OWN

This role does not independently own: final hiring decisions; HR/legal decisions; brand or creative direction; ecommerce trading strategy; product buying decisions; final people-management decisions; major software purchases without approval; uncontrolled AI, automation or code changes; confidential founder strategy without permission. The role builds and improves the operating infrastructure. Business owners remain accountable for business judgement and final decisions.

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR

• Evidence of turning unclear work into usable systems.
• Strong structured thinking and practical business judgement.
• Confidence with AI tools, spreadsheets, databases, forms, dashboards and workflow tools.
• Ability to extract knowledge from founders, managers and subject-matter experts.
• Ability to simplify messy processes without over-engineering.
• Strong written communication in a remote environment.
• Good judgement around confidentiality, access, permissions and approval.
• A tool-agnostic approach: you choose the simplest useful system, not the fanciest tool.
• Focus on adoption, not just system design.
• Comfort working across retail, ecommerce, HR, recruitment, marketing, operations and product workflows.

WHAT GOOD LOOKS LIKE

Founder-held workflows become usable by other people. Repeated processes have clear owners, steps, evidence and review rhythms. Recruitment, HR, retail, ecommerce and marketing workflows become easier to operate. AI outputs become more structured, useful and reviewable. Managers know where to find the latest documents, trackers and actions. Meetings turn into actions without repeated founder chasing. Dashboards show exceptions, blockers and overdue work. Systems are actually adopted by users, not just built and abandoned. The company becomes less dependent on one person remembering everything.