--- title: 'Strategy & Operations Manager at Kota' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/strategy-operations-manager-kota-dublin-k7bj3xqs4g4f' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-09-09' --- # Strategy & Operations Manager at Kota - **Company:** Kota - **Location:** Dublin, Ireland - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** hybrid - **Posted:** 2026-09-02 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-09 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/kota/8b1c3990-f4cf-4c5a-a1db-2ce3fb37421e/application **Skills:** SQL > Kota's first Strategy hire will drive business-critical projects, lead day-to-day initiatives, and support geographic expansion while reporting to the COO. The role requires a generalist with strong analytical skills to build data foundations and improve customer experience in a fast-paced startup environment. ## Job description Reporting to: COO Location: Dublin - 2 days on site ## About Kota Kota is reimagining insurance and retirement benefits for the modern workforce. Through our two flagship products - Kota Platform, the first fully integrated benefits platform, and Kota Embed, our embedded insurance solution - we're making benefits more accessible, valued, and global. Today, we power benefits for tens of thousands of employees at Europe's most forward-thinking companies, including Carwow, Tines, Zoe, and Remote. Founded in 2022, we've raised more than €20M from leading investors like EQT Ventures, Eurazeo, Northzone, and Frontline, along with founders and executives from Workday, Remote, Personio, OpenAI, and more. ## The Role We are building out our foundational Strategy team, which will play a crucial role as we scale the business in 2026 and 2027. Reporting to the COO, this person will take on a wide range of responsibilities to support many different areas of Kota. The initial focus will be on shaping the end-to-end customer experience and working cross functionally to ensure we deliver great outcomes for our customers. Success in this role would lead to this person becoming a trusted problem solver in the company with broad knowledge of the business and its operations. This individual should be a generalist and an excellent problem solver, enjoying the ambiguity that is inherent in startup life. The role represents an opportunity to build, supported by experienced founders and a stellar executive team, leading to senior leadership exposure and accelerated learning. ## What You'll do - Drive strategic projects. Identify and lead business-critical projects that will accelerate business growth and improve efficiency, particularly in areas such as customer experience and expansion - Lead day-to-day initiatives to uplift the performance of our functional teams, taking ownership for element of our BAU setup - Own competitive intelligence. Build our market understanding and contribute to the development of industry-leading solutions that solve pain points experienced by customers. - Establish data foundations. Contribute to a data-centric culture by owning projects that drive our information capabilities, enabling everyone to take a data-driven approach to problem-solving. - Prepare cross-functional updates. Draft and update materials informing stakeholders about project progress, risks, and opportunities. - Handle ad-hoc requests relating to all functional areas of the business, including deep dives or issue analysis and resolution ## What We're Looking For - 5+ years of experience in fast-growing startups or top-tier consulting firms or equivalent - Outstanding analytical skills across tools, with SQL experience preferred - Ability to switch contexts. We are looking for a generalist who can quickly learn and operate across various, complex topics at any one time - Bias for action. You prefer to drive things to completion and achieve results - Customer-first mindset. Our customers are at the heart of what we do and everything we build contributes to industry-leading outcomes for them - Clear communication. Excellent written and verbal skills. You can communicate ideas clearly and engage stakeholders at all levels - Comfort with ambiguity. You thrive when there's no playbook. You'd rather build the thing than inherit the thing. ## Our Values - Have Integrity. We care deeply about our why and it won’t jeopardise our how. - Care Deeply. Our products are our story, we look at the details, go the extra mile to delight customers. - Own Your Ship. Ask why, do the work, get the data, solve the problem, be an owner. - Raise the Bar. We continuously look to push past good enough. Expect more, move faster, and never stop raising your and the team’s standards. - Play to Win. We exist because we decided to say no to the norm – now we do this everyday. Kota Benefits - Health Insurance via Kota with a generous allowance - Workplace Pension with matched contributions up to 5% via Kota (country dependent) - WFH stipend to support your home office setup - 25 days of Paid Time Off (PTO) - Annual company-wide offsite + dedicated team offsite - Attractive stock options for all employees ## About Kota ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Kota builds the internet’s infrastructure for employee benefits, offering a single platform that connects companies to health, life, and retirement providers across every market. - **Entity Type**: Private (Series A) - **Headquarters**: Dublin, Ireland - **Founded**: 2022 - **Founders**: Luke Mackey (CEO & Co-Founder) ## Core Business - **Primary industry**: Financial Services / Employee Benefits (InsurTech / HR Tech) - **Target customers**: B2B; core fit for growing UK and Ireland companies, particularly SME and mid-market teams; enterprise functionality available for larger organizations. - **Mission or purpose**: To build the internet infrastructure for financial benefits — powering health insurance, pension, and life insurance for a new generation of employees. ## Products & Services - **Kota Platform**: An all-in-one employee benefits platform that replaces both traditional brokers and legacy benefits software. It lets HR teams set up, manage, and track pension, health insurance, life assurance, income protection, and critical illness cover in one place. - **Kota Embed (API)**: An API that allows partners (e.g., HRIS platforms like Remote and Helios) to embed benefits directly into their own products. - **Spend Cards**: Issue and manage cards for employee allowances with automated controls, reporting, and payroll reconciliation. - **Flexible Benefits**: Employees can choose benefits that matter to them (e.g., gym, wellness, travel) — all managed in the Kota app. - **Built-in Brokerage**: Kota is a regulated insurance intermediary (licensed by the Central Bank of Ireland and an appointed representative of the FCA in the UK), so procurement and management happen in one system. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed. - **Key Metric**: Total funding of **$22.4M** (€20m+), with a $14.5M Series A announced in May 2025. - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Eurazeo (lead Series A), EQT Ventures, Northzone, Frontline Ventures, 9Yards, Plug and Play Ventures. - **Growth Signals**: - Headcount grew **76.4% YoY** to 61 employees. - Powering benefits for **65,000+ employees** (as of mid-2025, growing to 100,000+ by 2026). - **13 active job postings** as of mid-2025. - Licensed by the Central Bank of Ireland as an insurance intermediary — the only insurance benefits platform with regulatory approval across the EEA and the UK. - Powers benefits for platforms like Remote and Helios. ## Competitive Advantages - **Regulatory moat**: Kota is a regulated broker and platform in one — a combination that is rare and difficult to replicate. Licensed by the Central Bank of Ireland and FCA in the UK, it can procure and manage insurance directly. - **Deep carrier integrations**: Direct integrations with insurance carriers across dozens of countries, removing costly intermediation and enabling real-time, end-to-end automation. - **API-first infrastructure**: Unlike legacy benefits software, Kota offers an API that lets partners embed benefits natively, creating a platform ecosystem. - **All-in-one approach**: Replaces brokers, portals, spreadsheets, and admin — HRIS sync, payroll reconciliation, employee app, and brokerage all in one system. ## Strategic Focus - **Expand carrier reach**: Deepening integrations with insurance carriers in more markets (UK, Ireland, Portugal, Italy, Spain, Brazil, and beyond). - **Deepen core product experience**: Building the best possible experience for health insurance, pension, and life assurance. - **Scale the platform**: Growing the team (hiring across engineering, design, sales, and people functions) to support rapid customer acquisition and product development. - **Embedded benefits**: Growing the “Kota Embed” API to become the default way other platforms offer benefits. ## Why Work Here - **Culture**: Small, high-bar team where everyone owns real work from day one. Described as “first-class and ready for anything” with values of integrity and care. - **Remote/hybrid policy**: Hybrid/remote-friendly with a WFH stipend. Team is spread across Ireland, UK, Portugal, Italy, Spain, and Brazil. - **Notable perks**: Competitive salary, stock options, health insurance, up to 5% matched pension contribution, generous paid time off, WFH stipend. - **Engineering culture**: Opportunity to design a new category from scratch, work directly with founders, and ship work that reaches real employees on day one. Open roles include Product Engineer (Frontend/Backend), Senior Mobile Engineer, and Senior Product Designer. - **Impact**: Building infrastructure that supports employees through illness, loss, or retirement — a mission-driven, high-responsibility environment. ## Sources 1. [kota.io](https://www.kota.io/) 2. [kota.io/careers](https://www.kota.io/careers) 3. [kota.io/blog/series-a-announcement](https://www.kota.io/blog/series-a-announcement) 4. [LinkedIn - Kota](https://ie.linkedin.com/company/kotabenefits) 5. [Jobs.ashbyhq.com - Kota](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/kota) ## Other roles at Kota - [Product Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/product-lead-kota-london-13zt6xatnmdx) — London, United Kingdom - [Senior AI Product Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-ai-product-engineer-kota-europe-afp3s6rrp5v8) — Europe - [Senior Product Engineer - Pensions and Spend](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-product-engineer-pensions-and-spend-kota-remote-2q4dd3dk9rqn) - [Growth Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/growth-manager-kota-london-86by611v9h6r) — London, United Kingdom - [Senior Product Designer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-product-designer-kota-remote-s1cv3trmk2v7) - [Forward Deployed Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/forward-deployed-engineer-kota-dublin-91gkrz04kjca) — Dublin, Ireland - [Senior Product Designer - Embed](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-product-designer-embed-kota-remote-vpy3bsy4ybsd) - [Account Executive](https://feeny.ai/job/account-executive-kota-london-6xaz84s8exym) — London, United Kingdom - [Technical Support Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/technical-support-engineer-kota-dublin-mb6rebyhxbpp) — Dublin, Ireland - [Senior Product Engineer (Backend)](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-product-engineer-backend-kota-remote-n54mmyrz7z3j)