General Manager / Community & Operations Lead
Shanty Place | Portugal (Cascais / Lisbon)
Location
Portugal, with priority given to Cascais / Lisbon (regular physical presence required).
About Shanti Place
Shanti Place is a premium community space in Cascais bringing together events, retreats, cultural programming, wellbeing practices, and curated social experiences.
Think less “wellness studio”, more community-driven lifestyle business — a place where people come to connect, learn, belong, and return.
We are entering a new growth stage and looking for someone to help turn a founder-led project into a scalable, well-run, profitable business.
The Role
We’re looking for an operator-builder — someone who can combine hospitality, business thinking, community programming and operational leadership.
This is not a classic corporate COO role.
It is closer to running a boutique members club, experiential business, or premium community venue.
You would act as the founder’s right hand and own the engine behind the business:
operations, programming execution, commercial performance, and growth.
What You’ll Own
Business Operations
Run day-to-day operations of the space
Bring structure, systems and operating rhythm
Coordinate team, practitioners, contractors and partners
Improve workflows and reduce founder dependency
Turn ideas into executable plans
Growth & Profitability
Own business performance and profitability
Manage budgets and unit economics for events/programs
Improve occupancy, utilization and repeat revenue
Track KPIs and make decisions from numbers
Build sustainable commercial mechanics, not just beautiful programming
Community Programming & Experiences
Oversee launches of retreats, events and new formats
Help shape a strong programming calendar
Ensure experiences are well-produced, profitable and aligned with brand
Contribute ideas for partnerships, memberships and new revenue streams
Team & Execution
Lead a small cross-functional team
Create accountability and clear priorities
Hold execution quality high without bureaucracy
Balance creative energy with operational discipline
You may be a fit if you’ve worked in areas like:
Boutique hospitality
Members clubs / community businesses
Retreats / experiential events
Coworking / coliving / lifestyle venues
Premium service businesses
Founder-led businesses as operator / GM / right hand
Growth-stage community-driven businesses
We’d love someone who has:
Strong business and operational instincts
Experience owning budgets / P&L / unit economics
Team leadership experience
Commercial mindset and comfort with numbers
Experience scaling service or community businesses
Understanding of sales funnels / partnerships / recurring revenue
Digital product curiosity is a plus (future online membership direction)
Russian or Ukrainian preferred.
English working proficiency required.
What Success Looks Like
Within 12 months you help Shanti Place become:
more structured
less founder-dependent
more profitable
more scalable
and even stronger as a premium community brand.
Compensation
Fixed compensation + performance upside.
Potential to grow into broader GM / operating partner role as the business expands.
Why this role is unusual
This is for someone who likes building businesses that have soul and economics.
Someone who can care about atmosphere and margins in the same sentence.