The Role
Location: Office based in Cape Town
Type: Full-time
Working hours are expected to be:
9AM - 6PM UK time. (11AM - 8PM SA time in Winter, 10AM - 7PM SA time in Summer)
Shorter days during some of August.
Reports to: Head of Resourcing
Salary: 600,000 - 850,000 OTE Rand
About Zen Educate:
Zen is revolutionising education. Schools spend over £2bn a year on agency staff, and £600m of that goes straight into the pockets of recruitment agencies. That’s why we’ve built an alternative.
Our online platform gives schools instant access to hundreds of profiles of fully vetted teachers and support staff. Since launching in 2017, we’ve saved schools over £10m – money that goes straight back into school budgets and increases teachers’ pay.
The opportunity
This is your chance to join a tech startup in hypergrowth. We’re passionate about professional development, and we’ll work to maximise your personal and career growth. We're looking for enthusiastic, mission-driven people who fit our values and are passionate about what we do.
We have recently raised our Series B funding of $37mil, the largest round in European EdTech this year. This is an exciting opportunity to make a difference and be part of a high growth start-up that is expanding rapidly in the UK and US markets!
The Role:
We are looking for a General Manager (Cape Town) to take full ownership over the growth and operations of our Cape Town office.
This is a unique hybrid role that blends commercial consulting, sales, and office management. You’ll be responsible for driving output, leading a high-performing team, and collaborating closely with our UK team to onboard and promote platform adoption by teachers and teaching assistants.
You’ll act as the key driver of our Cape Town operations, building a culture of accountability and efficiency, ensuring team growth, and owning day-to-day office management. This role is ideal for someone who thrives in a fast-paced environment, is passionate about people, and knows how to turn strategy into results.
Key deliverables:
● Use data and business insight to drive operational efficiency and output from the Cape Town office.
● Identify and implement improvements to our candidate onboarding funnel and internal processes to drive speed, quality and consistency.
● Coach and develop the sales and onboarding team to consistently hit team targets (new sign-ups, activations, verifications, etc.)
● Act as a “player-coach” - jumping into candidate onboarding and supporting the team where need to lead by example.
● Collaborate with UK-based leadership on hiring, training, and performance management.
● Continue to build a collaborative and high performing culture as part of our global values and mission.
● Lead initiatives to improve performance, streamline processes, and increase ROI.
● Oversee day-to-day office operations of our Cape Town office
What We’re Looking For:
● Passion for education, recruitment, and mission-driven work.
●5+ years of experience in a commercial, operations, or team leadership role, ideally within a high-growth tech company or startup.
●2+ years of experience in a consulting role or consulting environment.
●Proven track record of leading and motivating sales or operations teams.
●Comfortable working across time zones and collaborating with remote teams.
●Experience managing an office or physical operations is a strong plus
What's in it for you?
● Work that you want to talk about
● Competitive salary
● 25 days of holiday in line with UK education term dates, plus UK bank holidays.
● Fun-loving, tight-knit team solving a problem that makes a difference
Diversity and Inclusion
At Zen, we strive to build a culture of equity and inclusion, where everyone is respected, valued and appreciated for their unique traits, experiences and perspectives. We are committed to creating a safe, inclusive and equitable environment where our team can thrive, regardless of age, ethnicity, race, gender identity, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, disability, religion or beliefs. We value our differences and believe that practices of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion help us create a fairer, more compassionate environment for all.
We welcome applicants with diverse backgrounds and different experiences and perspectives — just like the staff who teach through Zen and the children at the schools we work with. We believe in hiring the best people from the widest pool and creating an inclusive culture where people’s voices are heard and all our team can look forward to coming to work.
We are committed to building a team that reflects the diversity of our community and promoting an equitable and inclusive environment for all. We seek out diverse opinions, beliefs, and experiences because they collectively make us stronger; we’ve had former teachers, pilots, fundraisers, engineers, lawyers, marketers, social media experts and more join our team.
We can’t wait to hear from you!
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The Company
What We Do
At Zen our mission is to change the world of education recruitment. Schools spend over £2bn a year on agency staff, with over £600m per year of that spent on fees that go straight to recruitment agencies. So far, we've saved UK schools over £14m in supply teaching recruitment costs, and that number grows every day, allowing schools to invest further into children’s wellbeing and attainment. We're not just redefining recruitment; we’re upskilling our supply staff to provide the highest quality teachers and TAs to schools. Each supply staff member is Level 2 Safeguarding trained, guaranteeing the safety and wellbeing of children in your school. Using our online platform, schools can access hundreds of fully vetted high-quality teacher & TA profiles, who they can book instantly at the click of a button. We don't stop at just providing a platform – we have a dedicated school success team here to support you every step of the way. When you succeed, we succeed!
