Operating Partner

Operating Partner — Stirling Heights

Location: Salt Lake City, Utah or New York City, NY ( ~25% travel in the Mid-Atlantic and Mountain West) Type: Full-time

About Stirling Heights

Stirling Heights is a permanent capital holding company headquartered in Utah. We acquire and build enduring businesses in essential services with no fund clock and no forced exit timeline. We differentiate from traditional private equity through founder-friendly structures: operational support for the businesses, flexibility in partnership terms, and a long-term ownership orientation.

Our current portfolio includes:

• Great Beginnings Academy— a 27-location early childhood education platform across Utah, Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico, with active expansion into adjacent services, such as ABA therapy
• Alliance Exterior — a commercial roofing and building envelope contractor serving D.C / Maryland / Virginia

We are actively expanding our number of platforms. This role is built for the firm, not for any single portfolio company.

The Role

The Operating Partner is the firm's senior execution leader across the portfolio. This is not a board-seat-and-quarterly-review role. You will be actively engaged with all businesses building the value creation plans, integrating what we buy, standing up new growth engines, and doing the hands-on work yourself when no one else exists to do it. The role sits at the intersection of deal work and operating work, and you will need to be credible in both rooms: with a founder deciding whether to sell you their life's work, and with the frontline managers of an operating business deciding whether to trust your plan.

The prior Operating Partner is transitioning into a full-time CEO seat within the portfolio. For the right person, this role is a credible path there as well. Meaningful equity stakes in portfolio companies are available to individuals that step into leadership roles.

What You Will Do

Portfolio value creation

You will build and drive both short-term initiatives and multi-year value creation roadmaps across portfolio companies, spanning organic growth, inorganic growth, and adjacency expansion. 

Some recent examples include:

• Standing up new adjacencies and service lines: market research, regulatory analysis, talent sourcing, unit economics and pricing models, and launch planning
• Executing B2B go-to-market motions, including partner and referral channel strategy, outreach campaigns, and incentive-driven value propositions
• Systemizing core processes to support long-term scale (e.g., marketing capability builds, pricing frameworks, and reporting systems)
• Designing interview processes, screening templates, and org structures for portfolio companies
• Leading systems migrations (e.g., core SaaS platform transitions with structured staff and customer communications)
• ....and just about anything else that you think can help get these companies into a better place

M&A and Post-merger Integration Support

While the Managing Partners of the fund will take the lead on acquisition efforts, you are a critical source of leverage for accelerating the fund's growth

• Design and execute proprietary surveys to validate critical diligence assumptions, assess broad datasets to synthesize implications for the target business, and support transition and integration value creation. 
• Learn and apply partners’ expertise to evaluate CIMs and off-market opportunities across services verticals; pressure-test EBITDA quality, customer concentration, backlog, and add-backs (Note: Partners have executed 35 sub $50M deals in the last six years)
• Build founder-facing materials, e.g., pitch decks and proposals that articulate the Stirling Heights partnership model in the seller's terms

Who You Are

• 6 years of combined strategy and operating experience. Top-tier management consulting (MBB or equivalent) plus real operating or deal execution exposure. MBA from a top program preferred; Analytical undergraduate training is a strong signal.
• A genuine generalist athlete. In a given week, this role can span an LOI negotiation, designing a marketing meeting, diagnosing a recruiting problem, and rolling out a systems migration comms plan. This might be across businesses in entirely different industries. You find that range energizing, not chaotic.
• Hands-on by default. There is no team beneath this role. You build the model, write the outreach email, and make the cold call yourself.
• IRR-first, framework-driven. You think in explicit assumptions, structured analyses, and tabular outputs. You hold the discipline to kill efforts that no longer clear the bar.
• High-trust with founders and operators. Lower middle market sellers and their teams need to believe you. You can build relationships with a wide range of personalities.
• Willing to travel regularly to portfolio companies (estimated 25%; currently Mid-Atlantic and Mountain West) and to be on the ground in other locations during diligence and integration.

Nice to Have

• Direct operating or deal experience in one or more essential services verticals (multi-site consumer services, specialty trades, industrial services, or similar) with the understanding that future platforms may be in verticals none of us have touched yet
• A track record of getting up to speed in an unfamiliar industry quickly: learning the regulatory landscape, the economics, and the talent market well enough to make sound decisions within weeks
• Experience with permanent capital, search funds, independent sponsorship, or holdco models

Compensation

Competitive base salary plus bonus. Details discussed in interview process.

Full health and dental coverage

To apply, send a resume and a short note to mjacobs@stirlingheights.com.