Chief Operating Officer - AI FinTech - NYC

New York 2 days agoFull-time External
Negotiable
Build the Operating System Behind the Most Ambitious Financial AI Company Ever Created Some roles are jobs. Some are careers. Very few are once-in-a-lifetime. This is that opportunity. We are a highly funded, stealth, Series A financial technology company building what will become the definitive data, diligence, and trading ecosystem for private markets—the private-market equivalent of what Bloomberg created for public markets. We are a regulated, next-generation Exchange, a global financial eco-system, ambitiously working to unify all the alternative asset financial processes from 0 to 1 in one platform. • Institutional-grade private market data • AI-driven document ingestion, classification, organization, extraction, and labeling • A full due diligence and investment committee workflow • An institutional and retail exchange (ATS), broker-dealer, and transfer agent • Web2 + Web3 infrastructure in one ecosystem Each component is best-in-class on its own. Together, they redefine an industry. This is all powered by proprietary AI and human-in-the-loop systems delivering near 100% accuracy, protected by 100+ filed patents (25 granted) across AI, financial markets, asset valuation and live pricing, share fractionalization, exchanges, blockchain, and distributed systems—many of them industry-defining. We are still in stealth. Not because we’re early— but because what we’re building matters. The Company Stage (Read Carefully) • ~110 people • Pre-launch, but already in hyper-growth mode • Engineering productivity has increased 600% per engineer year-over-year through AI-native development, collapsing traditional Product and QA layers • We are effectively producing at the scale of 200+ people • Our Series A valuation reflects this reality This company does not scale linearly. Neither will this role. The Founder & Leadership Dynamic You will partner with a singular, visionary sole founder who currently operates as: • Chairman • CEO • CTO • Chief Product Officer This founder sets vision, architecture, and velocity at the tip of the spear. Your job is to turn that vision into operational reality across the entire company, so the founder can remain focused on staying ahead of the industry while engineering and AI teams execute without friction. This is not a ceremonial COO role. This is not a “keep the lights on” role. This is a “build the operating system of the company” role. The Leadership Table You’ll Be Joining You will not be building this alone. This role sits among peers who have built, scaled, and defined industries before. The executive and advisory table is being formed by senior leaders from Wall Street and Silicon Valley, including current and former C-level executives from category-defining financial institutions and technology companies. When we exit stealth, several of these individuals will be publicly visible—each arrival a signal to the market that this platform is real, regulated, and here to lead. The Role: Chief Operating Officer As COO, you will own everything that is not engineering. That includes, but is not limited to: • Finance & capital operations • Business development & partnerships • Customer success & enterprise delivery • Internal operations, process, and scale • Hiring velocity, org design, and execution discipline You will: • Translate the CEO’s vision into clear, executable operating plans • Install just-enough process—never bureaucracy—at exactly the right moment • Scale from startup chaos to high-growth precision without losing speed • Operate comfortably in a company that feels like 110 people but moves like 200+ • Act as a force multiplier for the CEO, not a buffer At times, you will also be externally facing—capable of representing the company with credibility in front of: • Wall Street executives • Institutional investors • Strategic partners • Regulators and industry leaders • Presence matters here. So does substance. Who This Works For (and Who It Doesn’t) This role is for someone who has: • Scaled startups into unicorn territory and beyond • Operated in high-velocity, ambiguous environments • Built real operating discipline without killing momentum • Led through inflection points where the company had to grow up overnight This role is not for: • Career big-company executives who need structure before progress • Leaders who mistake process for control • Operators who need consensus to move fast • Anyone looking for work-life balance during a launch of this magnitude If you have only worked at small startups, you likely won’t have the pattern recognition to scale this. If you have only worked at large enterprises, you likely won’t survive the speed. The rare candidate has done both—and knows when to switch modes. The Reality No one is “ready” for this role on day one. What matters is: • Conviction in your ability to rise to the challenge • Stamina to endure the most intense professional chapter of your life • A non-negotiable, never-quit work ethic • The humility to partner with a visionary founder • The confidence to lead at scale when it counts This will be the hardest job you’ve ever had. We believe it could also be the most meaningful. Opportunities like this—true greenfield, global, category-defining—are vanishingly rare. We are building the future infrastructure of private markets. We need the right partner to help make it real.