Chief Operations Officer Greater Brussels, Belgium Area

About eCarsTradee

CarsTrade is a fast-growing B2B digital car marketplace serving professional buyers in 40+ countries. Through our proprietary auction platform, we offer more than 15,000 vehicles per week, sourced from leading leasing and rental companies, fleet owners, banks, and dealerships.

After multiple consecutive years of ~45% YoY profitable growth, we are entering our next phase of European expansion.

We are looking for a Chief Operations Officer to scale the operating engine behind that growth.

The Role

Your mission:

Make operations faster, smarter, more scalable, cost-efficient and commercially effective.

As COO, you will own the operational engine behind thousands of vehicle transactions across Europe, leading Logistics, Administration, Claims, Operational Processes, and Strategic Projects.

You will also scale the operating infrastructure for our pan-European expansion — compounds, partners, borderless vehicle flows, local compliance and market-specific operations.

You will help shape company strategy and turn it into execution — setting operational priorities, implementing the OKR framework across the company, and driving measurable results.

This is a hands-on executive role. You will go deep into processes, data, and unit economics, identify root causes, and build scalable solutions rather than adding complexity or headcount.

And you will push technology hard. AI, automation, and data should replace manual work wherever they can deliver better outcomes.

The questions you should naturally ask are:

Why does this process exist? Can we eliminate it? Can we automate it? Can AI do it better? Why does this cost €X per vehicle? What breaks when volume doubles?

You will report directly to the CEO and work closely with Commercial, Finance, Product and IT. You will challenge people and existing ways of working, but do so with empathy, positivity and constructive collaboration.

You are a commercially minded operator and problem solver with a technology-first mindset. You think strategically but execute hands-on.

You have:

• 5+ years of management experience in transactional marketplaces, high-volume transaction platforms, automotive, vehicle remarketing, logistics, digital banking, or other operationally complex businesses.
• Experience scaling high-volume, preferably cross-border, operations.
• A track record of turning strategy into measurable execution.
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills.
• A strong instinct for simplification, automation and scalability.
• Practical experience or strong interest in AI and digital transformation.
• Strong leadership experience managing teams and managers.
• Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to lead cross-functionally with empathy and a constructive mindset.
• Fluent English. French, Dutch or German is a plus.
• A master’s degree in business, engineering, economics, IT, supply chain or a related field.

• Pan-European Operations & Administration: Scale and automate vehicle documentation, pickups, releases, registrations and other transaction workflows.
• Logistics: Build fast, reliable and cost-efficient European inbound and outbound vehicle flows across transport partners, compounds and markets.
• Facilities, Infrastructure & Permits: Lead facility searches, lease and acquisition negotiations, construction and infrastructure development, and secure all required permits across Europe.
• Claims & Quality: Make claims faster, more consistent and increasingly automated — and use the data to eliminate root causes.
• Strategic Projects: Own strategic company initiatives and projects.
• OKR Implementation: Implement the framework across the company.
• Strategy & Execution: Help define the company's strategy. Turn strategy into priorities**, KPIs and execution** — with clear ownership and measurable outcomes.
• Scale & Efficiency: Find bottlenecks, eliminate waste and improve time-to-customer, cost per vehicle and transactions per employee.
• AI & Automation: Identify and implement high-impact AI and automation opportunities across Operations.
• Commercial Impact: Treat Operations as a growth lever — improving customer experience, conversion, margin, and transaction velocity.
• Operating Systems: Work with Product and IT to build workflows, dashboards and decision-support systems.
• People: Build high-performing teams with high standards, clear accountability, empathy and a continuous-improvement mindset.

• Direct partnership with the CEO and executive-level impact.
• Significant autonomy to build the organization and operating model.
• The opportunity to build a pan-European, AI-driven operating platform.
• Competitive compensation, bonus system and company car.
• Brand-new office with a gym and modern facilities.

If you like solving hard operational problems, building from scratch and turning complexity into scalable systems, we’d like to meet you.