Strategy and Ops Lead (Founding Team)

The role in one paragraph

You sit in the Strategy and Ops team and own the growth problems that decide whether Pallet becomes a generational company or a good one. You report to Ryan Gu, our Chief of Staff, and work closely with Sushanth Raman, our CEO. In practice, you're close to the decisions that set direction — how we price, which channels we bet on, how we prove value to enterprise buyers — and you're also the person who builds the model and runs the play. This is not a chief-of-staff role that manages calendars and decks. You carry outcomes.

Why this role exists. Sushanth has been doing most of this himself. Channel partnerships, value-based pricing, investor and advisor networks, executive relationships — these have been the CEO's own projects, run out of his calendar. That no longer scales. You're not hired into a function someone else defined; you're taking handoff of the CEO's highest-leverage work, alongside Ryan and the rest of the Strategy and Ops team.

Reporting & exposure

Works closely with	Sushanth Raman (CEO), Abbey Garwin (VP of Global Sales), Jeff Zhao (Head of Product), Austin Zheng (Head of Finance), Nilkanth Patel (CTO)
Investor exposure	Our investor network is part of the growth surface. You'll meet people at General Catalyst, Bessemer, and Bain Capital Ventures through partnership work and events.
Location	San Francisco (FiDi) onsite Mon–Fri
Level	Founding member of the Strategy and Ops team

What the work actually looks like

Here's the real mix from someone about a month into this seat. Treat it as a picture of the territory, not a job spec — the split will shift with your strengths and what the company needs that quarter.

Business value and pricing

• Pricing. We're moving from cost-based to value-based pricing. This is live, unresolved, and consequential.

• Business case development. The ROI models and value narratives enterprise buyers need to get budget approved — built once as a repeatable framework, not rebuilt deal by deal.

• Sales enablement. Talk tracks, ROI tools, and objection handling, built with AEs rather than handed to them.

• Proving value at POC. Defining how we measure success in pilots so they convert, and feeding what we learn back into pricing and the product.

Executive support, strategy, and internal leverage

• Preparing the CEO: Board-level introductions at global enterprises, investor meetings, strategic partner conversations.

• Investor and professional-services events. Preparing them and attending alongside leadership.

• Product and commercial strategy. Customer discovery that feeds directly into what we build and how we sell it.

• GTM engineering and internal tooling. Building the systems that make the rest of go-to-market faster.

What good looks like at the end of a quarter: new partners sourced and activated, a pricing or business-case change that shows up in closed deals, and tools sales uses when you're not in the room.

What this role is not

"Strategy and operations" means twenty different things at twenty different companies, so we're explicit here.

• Not a research function. You won't produce analysis that someone else executes. You do both.

• Not a chief-of-staff or calendar role. No admin, no meeting scheduling, no ghostwriting as your main job.

• Not account management. You don't carry a book of accounts or run renewals. You build the frameworks, channels, and pricing that make every deal better.

• Not a people-management role on day one. Leverage comes from budget, contractors, and agencies first. Team comes when scope demands it.

• Not fully defined, on purpose. The territory is real, but the sequencing is yours to shape with Ryan and Sushanth.

Why Pallet, and why now

• The market. Logistics is a $12T global industry running on manual workflows. We're rebuilding the labor layer with AI agents.

• Our customers. Some of the largest carriers, LTL fleets, cold storage networks, and contract warehousing operators in North America.

• Capitalization. $50M raised from General Catalyst, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Bain Capital Ventures, with a long runway and inbound interest in our next round.

• Talent density. You'd work next to people who were early at DoorDash, Google/Nest, Ramp, Scale, AtoB, Assembled, and Verkada, plus MIT supply chain and McKinsey alumni.

• The window. Outsized influence over product, GTM, and company trajectory only exists for a short stretch of a company's life.

How your career scales here

We're flat and we promote from within. We care about slope, ownership, and impact — not ladders or tenure.

• Nilkanth Patel: IC → Head of Product Engineering → CTO

• Jeff Zhao: first business hire → Head of Deployments/Product

• Austin Zheng: Chief of Staff → Head of Finance

• Grace Turner: first recruiter → Head of Talent

Realistic paths from this seat: Head of Growth, Head of Partnerships, Head of Pricing and Business Value, or GM of a product line. Which one depends on which part of the work you make yours.

Compensation

• Base: $150,000-$210,000 plus equity and full benefits

Interview process

1. Chat with Grace Turner, Head of Talent — 30 min

2. Business case conversation with Ryan Gu, Chief of Staff — 45–60 min

3. Short Excel modeling exercise, on your own time

4. Final interview, onsite in San Francisco — ~3.5 hours

5. Brief background and reference check

We move fast and keep you informed at every stage.