What does a Head of Operations at Cito actually do?

What does a Head of Operations at Cito actually do?

We asked Alexander Chmielowitz, our Head of Operations, exactly that.

Alex has been with Cito for over a year and was our first operations hire. This allowed him to help shape everything from the ground up, not just improving workflows and processes, but establishing them from scratch.

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‍Alex, what does a Head of Operations actually do at Cito?

As Head of Operations, my job is to manage, analyze, optimize, and redesign our daily business operations together with my team. Within our team, we have Operation Specialists responsible for different areas, ensuring the day-to-day operation of our transport solution. We are in constant contact with our transport partners so we can quickly find solutions if something doesn't go as planned. As Head of Operations, I always have to maintain an overview of all our operational activities to ensure they work together seamlessly. Partner management, for example, is a key part of this. I have to make sure we always have enough transport partners to handle the requests from customers using our transport-on-demand solution. Accordingly, I am in constant communication with our sales team to stay on top of customer demand. It’s a very versatile role with many touchpoints across the company, but that’s exactly what makes it so exciting for me!

You were one of the first employees at Cito and the very first in the operations department. What was that like for you?

At the beginning, the operations department was a blank slate where I could build our structures from the ground up. This helped me gain a specific understanding of all the tasks and workflows for every position, as I went through everything myself from the start. This makes it easy for me now to understand what tools my team needs. Because I grew into my role as Head of Operations alongside the team, I have a great relationship with my amazing team, which has a fantastic impact on our work.

What aspects do you pay particular attention to in your work?

As a digital company, we try to push digitalization in our processes as well. This means we continuously question and evaluate our data using a variety of tools to optimize our processes. Because this is a clear focus for us, we can develop the best customer journey for our partners and clients. For example, we were recently able to drastically reduce the duration of our partner onboarding, making it easier and faster to start working with us. Scalability is another aspect that is particularly important to me. Since Cito is growing so rapidly, I have to ensure we establish processes that work at different scales. Our CEO, Dr. Gregor Stock, once said to me: "It’s important to me that you know how our company works now, but also how the company will run in a year."

It is especially important to me not to make decisions based on gut feeling. Every new process or optimization is based on the data we collect.

What do you particularly like about your work at Cito?

I feel like I can really help build something big here and contribute my own ideas. Because we are still such a small team, communication is fast and we can implement improvements quickly. Plus, I really enjoy working with my team.

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