VP Portafolio Operations

 

VP Portfolio Operations — Job Description

Sep 22, 2026 · @Someone

VRM Penzini Capital is hiring a Vice President, Portfolio Operations to drive value creation inside its portfolio companies. The role exists so that the partners spend their time on decisions, capital and relationships, and the companies get a full-time operator from the fund who makes them better. This is an operating role, not an investing one: no deal sourcing, diligence or transaction execution.

About the role

Title: Vice President, Portfolio Operations

Reports to: Managing Partner. Works with all three partners and directly with portfolio company CEOs and CFOs.

Location: San Juan, Puerto Rico, based in the firm's office. Most of the portfolio is on the island; the role is expected to be inside the companies, not only on calls with them.

Why now: the portfolio has grown to a size where the value-creation agenda across the companies needs a full-time owner. The partners will stay close to the companies on strategy, capital and governance; this role owns execution inside them.

The portfolio

VRM Penzini Capital is an SEC-registered private equity firm based in San Juan and Coral Gables, founded in 2020, that makes long-term growth investments in lower-middle-market companies in Puerto Rico and the Southeast United States. The portfolio is about ten companies across financial services, energy, media, spirits, consumer and business services, ranging from a few dozen employees to several hundred. Most are on the island.

The companies are at different stages: some are scaling, some are stabilizing after a build-out, some are being prepared for sale. Each has its own CEO. The VP works across all of them and concentrates on the two or three where the fund and the CEO agree the upside is largest.

Responsibilities

1. Value creation inside the companies (about half the role)

• Write and own a 100-day value creation plan for each company with the CEO: three to five initiatives, each with an owner, a number and a date. Refresh it every quarter.
• Work inside the companies on the initiatives that move revenue, margin and cash: pricing and product economics, sales pipeline and incentive design, cost structure, working capital and collections, procurement, technology and process.
• Build the operating model and KPI dashboard for each company; make sure the CEO runs the business off the same numbers the fund sees.
• Lead the recurring cross-portfolio projects: shared services, group purchasing, insurance, banking terms, AI and automation in operations.
• Help CEOs hire their key people: write the spec, run the search with the recruiter, sit on the panel. Assess management teams honestly and tell the partners when a change is needed.
• Step in as interim operator for a defined period when a company loses a key executive. Set the exit date before starting.

2. Portfolio governance and reporting

• Set the monthly reporting package every company delivers (P&L, cash, KPIs, covenant compliance, initiative status) and enforce the deadline, with the Fund Controller.
• Prepare board materials with each CEO: decision-oriented, one page of numbers, covenant trends, the initiative tracker. No board meeting without a pre-read three days before.
• Track covenants, maturities and lender obligations across the portfolio; flag a problem to the responsible partner before the lender does.
• Own the portfolio company rows in the firm's operating tracker and keep them current.
• Prepare quarterly valuation inputs and the portfolio section of investor letters with the Fund Controller.

3. Exit readiness

• Keep every company in a condition to be sold: clean and reconciled numbers, a documented management team, a growth story with evidence, contracts and permits in order.
• Twelve months before a planned exit, run an internal sell-side review with the CEO: quality of earnings issues, working capital normalization, customer concentration, key-person risk, and fix what can be fixed.
• When a process launches, the partners and the banker run it. The VP's job is that the company performs through the process and that management delivers the numbers it promised.

Not in scope. Sourcing, screening, diligence, financial modeling for new investments, IC memos, negotiation, closing and sale processes stay with the partners. If a company acquires a bolt-on, the VP owns integration from signing onward, not the deal.

4. Firm

• Maintain the firm's 100-day plan template, KPI dashboard template, monthly reporting package and board pack format.
• Mentor analysts and associates on portfolio work as the team grows; review their work before it reaches a partner.
• Present portfolio performance at the annual CEO summit and the LP annual meeting.

How the role works

With the partners. Each company has one responsible partner. The VP works for that partner on that company and brings decisions, not status. Partners attend board meetings and decision calls; the VP attends the operating calls.

With CEOs. The VP is the CEO's first call at the fund. The relationship is built on being useful inside the company, not on inspection. The VP has no authority over the CEO; the partner and the board do.

With the Fund Controller. The Controller owns the numbers (close, valuation, investor reporting, compliance). The VP owns what the numbers say about the business and what to do about it. Reporting standards and board packs are joint work.

With advisors. The VP engages operating consultants, recruiters and specialists for portfolio initiatives within an agreed budget. Bankers, deal counsel and tax advisors on transactions remain with the partners and the Fund Controller.

Profile

Required

• 8 or more years of experience that includes running a business or a business unit with P&L responsibility. Strong candidates come from several backgrounds: general managers and division heads, founders and owners who have built and sold a company, senior operators from family businesses, management consultants with operating time, and portfolio operations professionals at investment firms.
• Has personally led a growth, turnaround or professionalization plan inside a company and can describe the result in numbers: revenue, margin, cash.
• Has built or run a business off an operating model and KPI dashboard, and has managed a budget, a team and a board or owner relationship.
• Comfortable with lower-middle-market companies in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean: thin management teams, family ownership, informal reporting, regulatory friction.
• Fully bilingual, Spanish and English, written and spoken. Writes a clear one-page memo.
• Strong with numbers and Excel; fluent with modern AI tools for analysis and drafting.

Preferred

• Experience in one or more of the portfolio's sectors: consumer finance, renewable energy, media, restaurant franchising, distributed solar, spirits, business services.
• MBA or equivalent, or a track record that makes it unnecessary.
• Existing network among Puerto Rico operators, lenders and advisors.

Temperament

• Prefers being in the company to being in the deck. Will spend two days a week in portfolio companies.
• Recommends before explaining. Surfaces the bad news first.
• Works without a partner in the room and knows when to bring one in.
• Treats CEOs as partners, not reports, and can still say hard things to them.
• Comfortable with ambiguity: ten companies, five sectors, no two alike.

First 90 days and success measures

By day 30: has met every CEO in person and spent at least a day inside each company; has read every board pack, budget and credit agreement; has a written first read on each company: the three things that matter most and what is in the way.

By day 60: monthly reporting standard issued and adopted by every company; 100-day plans agreed with the CEOs of the three priority companies; portfolio rows in the firm's operating tracker current.

By day 90: first board cycle run on the new pack with pre-reads on time; one initiative at each of the three priority companies showing results in the numbers; one cross-portfolio initiative launched with a number attached.

Measured at 12 months

• Each company has a live value creation plan with quarterly refresh; at least two initiatives per company delivered against their numbers.
• Portfolio EBITDA and cash improvements attributable to VP-led initiatives, tracked per initiative, exceed [target] in aggregate.
• Every board meeting has a pre-read three days before; no covenant breach reaches a lender before it reaches a partner.
• Partner hours in portfolio operating calls down by half, measured on the calendar.
• CEOs name the VP as the person at the fund who helped them most.

Compensation and application

Compensation: [base salary range], annual bonus tied to the 12-month measures above, carried interest participation in new investments from the date of hire, health benefits. Partners to confirm before posting.

Start date: [target date].

To apply: send a resume and a two-page note on one company you helped improve: the starting position, what you did, the numbers before and after, and what you would do differently. Send to [contact email].