Chief Executive Officer

COMPANY:
A private equity-backed full-service provider of commercial landscaping services with a primary focus on the Sunbelt region of the United States.

REPORTS/RELATIONSHIPS:
The Chief Executive Officer reports to the Board of Directors.

BASIC FUNCTIONS:
The Chief Executive Officer has full profit and loss responsibility for the company. This individual serves as the strategic leader for the organization, and in conjunction with the private equity sponsor, works to achieve the overall vision and mission of the company. The CEO coordinates strategic initiatives and objectives that ensure the company’s financial health. This individual must lead by example and communicate the organization’s objectives to the employees and customers as appropriate.

Specific duties will include, but not necessarily be limited to:

Own full P&L performance across the platform – establish a daily and weekly operational cadence that drives branch-level accountability for labor utilization, route productivity, gross margin, and customer retention; intervene decisively when performance deviates from plan.
Drive continuous margin improvement across all branches – implement job-costing discipline, reduce unbillable hours and route inefficiency, manage subcontractor and material spend, and build a shared services infrastructure that generates operating leverage as the platform scales.
Run the Operating Business System across the platform – deploy its operating tools, metrics, and cadence consistently across all branches to drive the growth and performance the business is targeting.
Lead organic growth through a commercially disciplined sales organization – design territory structure, bidding processes, and incentive compensation that drives profitable new business without eroding margin; build an enhancement and cross-sell strategy within the existing customer base.
Develop and execute a customer retention strategy anchored on contract renewal performance, proactive account management, and annual repricing processes that reflect labor and material cost escalation while protecting the recurring revenue base.
Lead greenfield market expansion – evaluate new geographies against a disciplined framework of commercial density, labor availability, and competitive fragmentation; develop a repeatable launch playbook and recruit branch-level leadership capable of reaching profitability on plan.
Oversee the company’s ERP and field service management platforms as operational assets – drive full utilization across all branches, ensure real-time visibility into critical metrics, and lead systems integration for every acquired business within a defined post-close wi
Build and continuously strengthen the senior leadership team – assess talent against the demands of a scaling platform, recruit proactively into gaps, and develop branch and regional managers as the primary operational leverage point for sustained growth.
Manage the workforce program as a strategic competitive advantage – ensure compliant, well-organized program execution, maximize returning worker retention year over year, and integrate seasonal labor into crew structures in a way that optimizes early-season productivity and labor margin.
Champion a company-wide safety culture and ensure regulatory compliance across OSHA, EPA pesticide and herbicide licensing, DOT fleet requirements, and H-2B visa obligations; include safety and compliance assessment in every acquisition diligence process.
Prepare the company for a sale within approximately 24 months – align financial reporting, operational performance, and growth initiatives to that timeline so the business is positioned to withstand buyer and investor diligence.
Serve as the primary interface with the Board of Directors and PE sponsor – lead business reviews, manage lender relationships, and position the company and management team for a successful exit process through disciplined execution of the value creation plan.

REQUIREMENTS:

Experience leading the buy-and-build strategy of a private equity-backed commercial services business as a CEO or equivalent; preference for experience in route-based recurring revenue business.
Ability to operate in a fast-paced environment, balancing multiple stakeholders utilizing data-driven decision making.
Experience building infrastructure required to scale business via organic growth greenfield or M&A.
Experience managing multilocation services businesses with location-specific operational cadences, sales environments/goals, etc.
Experience overseeing and efficiently managing a route-based service organization with a focus on constant gross margin improvement.
Financial statement fluency with demonstrated command of critical financial metrics core to (1) a PE-backed rollup strategy (annual budgeting/forecasting, leverage, debt service/free cash flow, managing liquidity, etc.); (2) daily monitoring of labor performance, implementing change where appropriate real time; and (3) a growing services business (margin analysis/optimization, working capital, CapEx, etc.).
Experience implementing a profitable bidding process including setting right incentive structure for sales team that does not erode gross margin targets and aligns all employees (including field labor force) to share in the company’s success without shareholders taking a discount.
Experience implementing/institutionalizing a sales strategy (including aforenoted incentive structure) to drive strong organic growth.
Demonstrated experience implementing/overseeing the implementation of an ERP system rollout, in addition to creating processes to effectively onboard add-on acquisitions to the system; effectively using the system real time to improve efficiencies.
Demonstrated ability to lead and motivate a field services workforce without losing focus on key objectives (labor margin, labor retention, H-2B utilization, etc.).
Self-motivated with a strong drive to achieve results.
Bachelor’s degree required; MBA a plus.

COMPENSATION:
Compensation will be commensurate with experience including a competitive base salary, bonus, equity, and competitive benefits package.