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Ridwell is a B Corp-certified sustainability company that helps people reuse and recycle materials through doorstep pickup and mail-in services, partnering with local and national organizations to divert waste from landfills. The company is at a pivotal growth stage and seeks a Partnerships Operations Manager to oversee the critical material flow and disposition operations that directly impact warehouse capacity, labor productivity, partner relationships, and costs.
Reporting to Operations, this role manages day-to-day execution of material movement from Ridwell warehouses through final disposition, working closely with the Partnerships team that develops recycling, reuse, and commodity relationships. The successful candidate will execute and monitor processes across material processing, warehouse capacity, freight management, partner performance, and financial reporting.
Key responsibilities include:
**Material Flow & Disposition:** Maintain consistent processes for moving materials to recycling, reuse, and commodity partners. Execute quality standards and auditing to ensure accurate processing. Monitor material aging and warehouse capacity to prevent unnecessary accumulation. Establish visibility into material weight, pallet location, age, and disposition status. Work with Operations teams and Partnerships to anticipate capacity constraints. Manage service expectations and operating cadence with material partners.
**Freight & Logistics:** Take operational ownership of freight scheduling and transportation. Coordinate with brokers and carriers, monitoring rates, lanes, and service performance. Identify unnecessary brokerage premiums and opportunities for direct-carrier relationships. Develop freight cost-per-pound and cost-per-lane visibility. Balance transportation decisions across cost, service, material volume, and warehouse capacity.
**Processing Cost Tracking:** Use warehouse job codes and material weight data to track processing costs by category. Develop visibility into labor hours, cost per pound, and incremental disposal expense. Partner with Finance and Operations to track contribution and total cost by material stream. Use analysis when evaluating existing and new featured pickup categories.
**Financial Discipline:** Complete ROI and payback analysis for equipment purchases and process changes. Include labor savings, throughput improvement, disposal cost, freight impact, utilization, and expected useful life. Establish clear assumptions before approval and measure results post-implementation. Use repeatable frameworks for evaluating future investments.
**Partnerships Collaboration:** Work closely with Partnerships as new relationships develop. Provide operational and financial input before finalizing new material programs or partner commitments. Translate partner requirements into executable warehouse, transportation, and disposition plans. Identify operational requirements, costs, and constraints early.
**Visibility & Accountability:** Maintain focused operating metrics on material performance across markets. Establish regular reporting on processing cost per pound, freight cost per pound, inventory weight by material, material aging, warehouse capacity utilization, disposition cycle time, partner service performance, disposal fees, and equipment ROI. Use data to identify problems, improve processes, and support decision-making.
This is an onsite role with occasional travel to other Ridwell locations and partner sites as needed.
**Requirements:**
- Highly operational and financially minded
- Comfortable working across Operations, Partnerships, and Finance
- Strong analytical skills and ability to translate data into operating decisions
- Experienced with logistics, transportation, warehousing, or material flow
- Comfortable managing external vendors, carriers, and business partners
- Able to negotiate rates and challenge unnecessary costs
- Understands ROI, payback, and basic business-case development
- Curious and willing to get into the warehouse and understand how work actually happens
- Comfortable building processes where structure does not yet exist
- Strong sense of ownership and accountability
- Able to balance cost, service, capacity, and sustainability
- Excellent collaborator who can work across teams without creating unnecessary bureaucracy
