Location: South San Francisco, CA
Type: Full-time
Reports to: VP, Global Production & Supply
The Opportunity:
Ohalo is seeking an agentic AI-capable, hands-on, first-principles leader to plan and manage seed production and supply as the company scales. This person will connect production, R&D, Commercial, and customer delivery around one reliable view of what we expect to produce, what is available to commit, and when customers can receive it.
This is a build role. The Seed Supply Operations Lead will establish the processes, data, systems, and decision rules that connect bioreactor output through seed delivery. The goal is a planning capability that detects changes early, evaluates feasible responses, automates repeatable work, and gives people clear choices when judgment is required. We want someone who can use AI where it improves speed or decision quality, and can demonstrate when a simpler approach works better.
The role has high visibility with Ohalo’s leadership team. Its success will be measured by better supply decisions and more reliable customer commitments, not by the number of meetings, dashboards, or AI tools introduced.
Responsibilities:
- An integrated supply picture: Build a planning model that connects demand, production capacity, expected yield, batch timing, quality status, usable inventory, logistics, and customer commitments. Make uncertainty visible rather than presenting a single forecast as a certainty.
- The planning operating model: Establish practical short-, medium-, and long-range planning and decision processes. This may include S&OE and S&OP disciplines, but you will design the cadence around the decisions Ohalo needs to make, rather than inherit a standard meeting structure.
- Supply and customer commitment decisions: Create a dependable view of available and projected supply, including the assumptions and release gates behind it. Identify shortages and competing demands early; present allocation and recovery options with their customer and operational consequences. Work with the VP, Global Production & Supply Chain, and Commercial leadership to define who recommends, approves, and communicates consequential commitments and allocation decisions.
- Scenario planning: Model the effect of changes in demand, yield, capacity, batch timing, quality release, and logistics. Show leaders the feasible options, trade-offs, and time available to act.
- AI-enabled workflows: Identify and deploy specific uses of AI, machine learning, and automation across forecasting, exception detection, scenario analysis, and planning coordination. Define the data, rules, approval points, and performance measures for each use case. Keep people accountable for decisions that require commercial, technical, or operational judgment.
- Data and systems: Define the planning data model and the flow of information from source systems into decisions. Partner with technology and functional leaders to select and implement appropriate tools, including APS (Advanced Planning Scheduling), ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), or demand-planning capabilities where justified. Build a foundation that can evolve with Ohalo rather than assuming one system will solve the planning problem.
- Exceptions and execution: Establish a clear way to detect, prioritize, assign, and resolve issues such as supply shortfalls, demand changes, batch delays, and quality holds before they become customer-facing problems.
- Cross-functional alignment: Bring Production & Supply, R&D, and Commercial together around shared assumptions, a coherent plan, and explicit decisions. Make disagreements and trade-offs visible so leaders can resolve them promptly.
- Planning performance: Define and review measures such as forecast accuracy and bias, supply reliability, performance against committed delivery dates, inventory exposure, and exception resolution time. Use the initial operating period to establish baselines and set improvement targets.
- Capability building: Develop the processes, documentation, skills, and team structure needed for planning to scale from pilots to commercial volumes.
Candidate Profile
- Significant experience in supply, demand, production, or integrated planning, including responsibility for improving a planning process across functions. We value demonstrated ability to build and change an operating model more than years spent running an established one.
- Evidence of designing and deploying a data-driven or AI-enabled operational workflow that changed how decisions were made. You can explain the problem, the data and tools used, what was automated or supported, how people adopted it, and what results were achieved.
- Strong understanding of capacity, inventory, demand, and service trade-offs. Able to translate uncertain production outcomes into realistic plans and commitments.
- Comfortable working with biological or process variability, including yield uncertainty, batch timing, and quality release gates.
- Strong systems and data fluency. Able to work from source data through planning logic to operational decisions, and to partner effectively with technical teams.
- Excellent cross-functional leadership. Able to align Production, R&D, and Commercial stakeholders, challenge assumptions constructively, and drive decisions without relying solely on formal authority.
- Comfortable building in an early-stage, fast-moving company. Willing to work directly with data and processes while developing a capability that others can operate and improve.
- Bachelor’s degree in supply chain management, operations, engineering, a quantitative discipline, or a related field, or equivalent relevant experience.
Desired Skills/Experience
- Experience in agribusiness, seed production, biotechnology, biomanufacturing, or another supply chain with uncertain yields and quality release requirements.
- Experience designing AI agents, copilots, or automated workflows for planning or operations, including defining what the system may recommend or do and when a person must approve its actions.
- Experience with production scale-up, batch variability, and the transition from pilot operations to commercial volumes.
- Experience building demand-sensing, statistical forecasting, or scenario models.
- APICS/ASCM certification, such as CPIM, CSCP, or CPF, or equivalent experience.
The anticipated base pay range for this role is $155,000 - $185,000 per year for our South San Francisco location. The pay offered to a selected candidate will be determined based on factors such as (but not limited to) the scope and responsibilities of the position, the qualifications of the selected candidate, budget availability, internal equity, geographic location and external market pay for comparable jobs.
About Ohalo:
Ohalo™ aims to accelerate evolution to unlock nature's potential. Founded in 2019, Ohalo develops novel breeding systems and improved plant varieties that help farmers grow more food with fewer natural resources, increasing the yield, resiliency, and genetic diversity of crops to sustainably feed our population. Ohalo's breakthrough technology, Boosted Breeding™, will usher in a new era of improved productivity to radically transform global agriculture. For more information, visit www.ohalo.com.
Ohalo is an Equal Opportunity / Affirmative Action employer committed to diversity in the workplace. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, gender identity or any other factor protected by applicable federal, state or local laws. Ohalo is also committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities. Please let your recruiter know if you need an accommodation at any point during the interview process
Notes: If you previously applied for a job at Ohalo Genetics, we encourage you to restate your interest in the position by submitting your application.
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