Principal, Strategic Operations

At Certn, we’re revolutionizing background screening with The World’s Easiest Background Check - fast, global, and powered by tech. We’re not about outdated processes and red tape. We’re about innovation, speed, and impact. If you’re looking for a place where ownership, collaboration, and creativity thrive, this is it.

We’re looking for a Principal, Strategic Operations to drive operational excellence, automation, and process optimization across Certn’s global business. In this high-impact, hands-on role, you’ll bridge operations and product teams, champion data-driven decision-making, and help shape scalable systems that fuel our next phase of growth.

You’ll work closely with Operations Leadership, product, data, and automation teams to execute critical projects, enable operational clarity, and reduce manual work. This is an individual contributor role with significant influence - ideal for someone who can own outcomes, manage cross-functional relationships, and drive results at scale.

Operational Project Leadership:
Lead and execute high-impact projects to improve operational scalability, reduce friction, and enable sustainable growth. You’ll scope, plan, and deliver initiatives that directly support Certn’s business objectives.
Own RAID logs to track risks, assumptions, issues, and dependencies, ensuring blockers are escalated and resolved.

Data Analysis & Insights:
Leverage data from multiple sources (including Looker and BI tools) to uncover trends, inform workforce optimization, and guide resource planning. Build dashboards and reporting tools to surface key metrics.

Continuous Improvement & Process Design:
Collaborate with stakeholders and technical teams to identify opportunities for process improvement, gather requirements, and design and implement solutions that minimize manual tasks and enable automation.

Cross-Functional Collaboration:
Influence and align teams across global operations, product, data, and compliance. Partner with our in-house AI specialist and automation leaders to deliver impactful solutions.

Process Design & Documentation:
Develop and roll out workflows, KPIs, and scalable operating models. Ensure consistency and reliability as we expand, and document improvements for ongoing knowledge sharing.
Contribute to the design and implementation of global operating models that enable business growth across regions.

Executive Communication:
Prepare executive-level materials, reports, and presentations to communicate priorities, project outcomes, and operational insights.
Serve as an extension of operations leadership, empowered to escalate blockers and drive cross-functional accountability.

• Experience building reliable processes and managing workflows - preferably in regulated industries, call centers, or customer service operations.

• Strong project management skills with a record of driving transformation without direct people management.

• Data-driven mindset and analytical skills (Excel/Sheets, Looker, BI tools, etc.).

• Confidence in partnering with product, engineering, and automation teams; able to bridge technical and business needs.

• Experience acting as a trusted advisor or “right hand” to senior leadership, with the ability to step up and own outcomes.

• Effective communicator and influencer, comfortable working across departments and presenting to leadership.

• Familiarity with internal systems, automation, and identifying process improvement opportunities.

• Open to diverse backgrounds - operational rigor and execution are more important than titles.

• Experience in utilizing automation tools like Robotic Process Automation, AI-powered Optical Character Recognition and process automation.

• Impact & Ownership: Drive critical operations initiatives that directly affect Certn’s growth.

• Global Collaboration: Work with world-class teams across Canada, the US, UK, and beyond.

• Flexibility: Remote-first role, ideally based in Eastern Time (GTA preferred) for cross-team collaboration.

• Benefits: Competitive salary, comprehensive health benefits, generous paid time off, and a culture that values autonomy and results.

• Growth Fuel: Budget for professional development, conferences, or certifications.

Certn is a growing global technology company reinventing the way organizations build trust in people with technology and AI-backed background checks. Having recently been named one of Canada’s Companies-to-Watch in Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 Awards, we are one of the fastest-growing start-ups in the sector.

Just so you know… The selected candidate will be required to complete a background check - so you’ll get to see first-hand what we do!

Certn is committed to equal opportunity, inclusion, and diversity. If you have a disability that requires accommodation at any stage of the recruitment process, please let us know how we can best assist you.

Ready to help us scale? Apply now and be a key driver in Certn’s next chapter.