Associate, Business Operations

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Title: Associate, Business Operations
Reporting to: VP, Business Operations
Supervisory role: No
Classification: Full-time
Location: Hybrid (3+ days in office) in Santa Monica, CA
Compensation: $100,000 - $ 125,000 annual base

Company Summary:

Wave Sports & Entertainment (Wave) is the leader in sports storytelling for the next generation reaching more than 130 million highly engaged followers globally. Wave’s award-winning, original programming is led by some of the most popular athletes and personalities in sports media -- including the hit digital series’ “New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce,” “Not Gonna Lie with Kylie Kelce,” “Podcast P with Paul George,” and “7PM in Brooklyn with Carmelo Anthony”, “Straight to Cam with Cameron Brink and Sydel Curry-Lee” -- dishing out entertaining commentary, unique perspectives, expert analysis, and behind-the-scenes stories about the players and events that are shaping the world of sports. Wave also holds partnerships with 100+ rights holders and sports properties, providing always-on programming to followers of the internet's largest and most engaged social communities.

Role Summary:

Wave is seeking a Business Operations Associate to join the Wave Strategy Team. This individual will play a critical role in driving strategic and operational initiatives that fuel revenue growth and optimize costs. They will identify bottlenecks, implement process improvements, and support resource allocation across a fast-growing sports media company. The role will also lead AI adoption by evaluating vendors and building workflows in tools like Glean, Cassidy, Zapier, and n8n. In addition, they will strengthen analytics and insights by maintaining reporting in Tableau, BigQuery, and Looker, while ensuring internal tools such as CMS, ad servers, and project management systems are effectively implemented. The ideal candidate combines strong analytics experience, a deep understanding of the digital media advertising landscape, and the ability to operationalize strategy through data, AI, and process design.

Responsibilities

• Business Operations
  • Identify bottlenecks and propose and ship ops fixes
  • Evaluate and implement opportunities to increase operational efficiency across the business.
  • Support resource allocation and operational strategy across a fast-growing sports media business.
• Artificial Intelligence
  • Identify key areas of the business that could improve from AI adoption
  • Vet AI companies to ensure process aligns directly to product
  • Build AI agents / workflows in tools like Glean, Cassidy, Zapier, or n8n
  • Test and implement AI tools and workflows to ensure accuracy and alignment to current product
• Strategy
  • Support high-priority strategic initiatives across all areas of the business
  • Conduct research and analysis to support decision making
  • Ensure execution of key initiatives is efficient and effective; run timelines, risks, and post-mortems to capture learning.
• Analytics, Insights, and Internal Tools
  • Support company data analytics and maintenance through Tableau, Big Query, Looker / LookML.
  • Lead high-priority analytics projects and reporting across the entire business (Excel, VBA)
  • Evaluate and implement tools (project management, CMS, ad server, analytics, social scheduling)

Qualifications

• 1-3+ years of experience in management consulting, banking, or at a start-up in a business operations or strategy role
• Advanced in Excel and can tackle complex analytics problems.
• Strong deck making and presentation skills
• Ability to thrive in a fast paced, high growth environment that frequently changes
• Have a bias to action: you test, iterate, fail, and improve; you don’t wait for perfection.
• Obsessive about AI companies and want to implement AI across a growing sports media company.
• Experience with Tableau, Airtable, Looker, Big Query or SQL / R
• Preferred experience with Zapier, n8n, Lovable, and other AI/workflow automation tools

Wave’s 5 Core Company Values

• Simplify and Get It Done

• Master Your Craft

• Practice Hospitality

• Be Direct

• Fearlessly Pursue New Ideas

We strive to hire individuals who embody these principles, as they are key to our success. This role plays a vital part in nurturing a culture that supports our fast-growing, adaptive, and industry-leading team. If you're someone who thrives on freedom and responsibility and is excited by a dynamic and fast-paced environment, this could be the perfect opportunity for you. However, it’s important to note that this role may not be the best fit for those who prefer a slower-paced or lower-pressure setting.

Pay Transparency + Benefits

At Wave, we’re transparent from the get-go—we want our candidates to know as much about us as possible, even before applying. We’re excited about our candidates and want them to feel the same about us!

This role is a full-time position with a base salary range of $100,000 to $125,000/year, and may be eligible for an annual bonus and equity. Actual salary at the time of offer may vary based on multiple factors, including an individual's experience level and qualifications. We believe in investing the very best in our employees, so in addition to the base salary for this role, all eligible full-time employees at Wave receive:

• Unlimited paid time off and 11 paid holidays
• 100% company-paid premiums for Employee medical, dental, vision, and life insurance coverage
• Flex-benefit options (FSA, HSA)
• Company sponsored 401(k) plan
• Stock options
• Paid Parental Leave
• Monthly Phone/Internet Reimbursement

Physical Requirements + Work Environment

• Capacity to operate a computer and other office productivity machinery and hardware.
• The ability to communicate and exchange information clearly and accurately.
• Work is sedentary and involves sitting for the majority of work hours.
• Able to work full-time M-F and nights and weekends as needed.
• The worker is not substantially exposed to adverse environmental conditions and work is performed in a business office environment.
• The worker may be exposed to variable lighting conditions (brightness or darkness) and noise during production when in the office.

At Wave Sports + Entertainment, we are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, national origin, gender, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital or parental status, disability, veteran status, victims of any “qualifying act of violence”, or other class protected by applicable law. We are proud to be an equal-opportunity workplace.

We are a Bullpen Sports Network, Inc. affiliate company

Direct Applicants Only