O&H Danish Bakery has exclusively retained The QTI Group to lead the search for a Chief Operating Officer.

About The Organization

O&H Danish Bakery is proud to be a fourth-generation, family-owned business, proudly serving five locations across Racine, Sturtevant, and Oak Creek, WI. Since 1949, the Olesen Family has been faithfully committed to baking quality Kringle and other delicious pastries. We still bake all our pastries and baker’s goods with the methods and passion that our grandfather, Christian Olesen, taught us.

While we are a bakery and food company at our core, O&H operates a diverse, multichannel business serving customers through retail, ecommerce/mail order, and wholesale. We view operational excellence, continuous improvement, and customer experience as key differentiators in sustaining our reputation as a top-tier provider of scratch-made, high-quality Danish bakery products.

Believing in each of these values in everything we do:

  • Family Service: Warm smiles, good conversations, and great people, every day, we strive to provide you with the same service as we would our own family.

  • The Olesen Family Guarantee: We want your bakery specialties to be perfect down to the very last bite. And if, for some reason, you are not satisfied, we will make it right.

  • Obsessed with Quality: We simply believe that to make a great bakery, you have to do it the right way – with no shortcuts, using the traditional methods passed down through generations.

  • Community-Focused: Racine, Wisconsin, has that small-town feel. And we would not be here without the support of many from our community, which is why we are determined to give back.

About The Opportunity

O&H Danish Bakery is seeking a hands-on, values-driven Chief Operating Officer (COO) to serve as a key operational leader responsible for driving the day-to-day success of a fast-growing, family-owned organization. Partnering closely with the President and Leadership Team, the COO is an operational and cultural leader responsible for translating strategy into disciplined execution to align people, processes, and systems, to drive strong financial performance, and to deliver exceptional quality and service across all channels.

This role ensures O&H delivers on its strategic vision by harmonizing the leadership team, leading the day-to-day business, and building and developing high-performing teams—while strengthening cross-functional collaboration and instilling a culture of accountability, continuous improvement, and results.

As part of a 76-year legacy built on craftsmanship and care, the COO will help lead O&H into its next era of growth, innovation, and operational excellence, overseeing all operational, retail, financial, customer, and growth functions.

Key Accountabilities:

  • Oversee the day-to-day business: Drive execution across all departments and ensure operational excellence across every business channel.

  • Drive accountability: Establish clear metrics, responsibilities, and performance management across the leadership team.

  • Harmonize the leadership team: Build trust, alignment, and collaboration between leaders and departments.

  • Prioritize and execute the vision: Translate the company’s strategic goals into short- and medium-term objectives with measurable outcomes.

  • Deliver P&L results: Manage budgets, forecasts, and cost control to achieve profitable growth.

Key Responsibilities:

Leadership, Culture & Strategy

  • Lead, coach, and develop the senior leadership team; ensure “Right People, Right Seats” alignment.

  • Promote O&H’s family values and mission while professionalizing systems and processes for scale.

  • Foster a culture of accountability, continuous improvement, and team collaboration.

  • Support succession planning and leadership development at all levels.

  • Serve as a bridge between ownership’s vision and the leadership team’s execution.

  • Translate strategic priorities into annual and quarterly objectives.

  • Serve as a trusted advisor to ownership, balancing legacy culture with forward-thinking execution.

  • Strengthen current strategic company partnerships and develop new business relationships with suppliers, service providers, and customers.

  • Collaborate with HR to develop strong talent pipelines and organizational development.

Operational Excellence

  • Oversee bakery production, warehousing, and fulfillment operations to ensure quality, safety, and efficiency.

  • Develop and monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) to ensure accountability and progress.

  • Ensure operational readiness and scalability across all channels: wholesale, e-commerce, catalog, and retail.

  • Implement systems and processes that support scale, compliance, and innovation.

  • Manage operational budgets and work closely with the Controller on financial planning and cost control.

  • Support store-level execution and operational consistency through scalable systems for staffing, training, merchandising, and service.

Commercial & Customer Operations

  • Ensure seamless, high-quality customer experience across retail, e-commerce, catalog, and wholesale channels.

  • Partner with IT, Finance and Sales & Marketing to integrate systems and automation that improve efficiency, scalability, and visibility across the customer journey.

  • Leverage data, analytics, and reporting to inform operational and commercial decision-making.

  • Champion cross-departmental communication and collaboration to ensure alignment between operations, sales, marketing, and fulfillment.

  • Ensure operational readiness to support new product launches, market expansion, and promotional campaigns.

  • Collaborate with the VP of Sales & Marketing to align supply and demand planning, ensuring coordination between marketing initiatives, sales forecasts, and production capacity — while driving pricing discipline and margin growth across all channels.

  • Partner with leaders and owners to honor O&H’s heritage while advancing innovation and continuous improvement.

Supervision: Direct Reports

  • Director of Human Resources

  • Financial Controller

  • Director of Retail Stores

  • Director of Baking Operations

  • Director of IT

  • Director of Fulfillment Operations

  • VP Sales & Marketing

Education and Experience:

  • Bachelor’s degree in Business, Operations, or related field.

  • Demonstrated success as President, COO, or other relevant C-suite position of office in a $50M–$250M enterprise.

  • Strong financial and operational acumen with experience in ERP and data systems.

  • Proven ability to lead cross-functional teams across production, finance, retail, ecommerce, and HR.

Knowledge and Skills:

  • Hands-on, collaborative leader with exceptional communication skills.

  • High integrity, humble confidence, and a servant leadership mindset.

  • Calm under pressure; decisive but empathetic.

  • Comfortable leading in a family-owned, values-driven organization.

  • Passionate about creating systems that enable great people to do great work.

Application and Selection Process

For consideration, please apply online. For more information, please contact:

Application Deadline: July 10th, 2026, at 4:00 pm CT.