Senior Vice President of Operations

The call comes in on a Tuesday in October. A regional director flags that a mid-size student housing asset in a secondary market is running 12 points behind occupancy compared to the prior lease-up cycle, and the owner is asking questions. You've seen the T-12, you know the market, and within an hour you're aligning the regional team on a recovery plan that touches pricing, concessions, and leasing activity. That's the texture of this role.

The Scope

Yugo is a global student living brand managing communities across multiple international markets, and this SVP of Operations position sits at the top of the U.S. operating structure, reporting directly to the President. The portfolio exceeds 40 student housing communities nationally, with the expectation that it will continue to grow. Beyond direct portfolio performance, this role carries real responsibility for the third-party management business: building owner relationships, supporting new business development, and integrating incoming management assignments smoothly into the platform.

You'll lead through a layer of senior and regional operations leaders, so the ability to drive accountability through others matters as much as your own instincts. The role carries full ownership of NOI, revenue, occupancy, delinquency, and bad debt across the portfolio. You'll partner closely with Finance on budgets and forecasts, coordinate with Sales, Marketing, and Revenue Management to keep leasing strategy and execution aligned, and work with Facilities leadership on operational consistency. When assets underperform, you're the one building the recovery strategy and holding the organization accountable for executing it.

Resident experience sits alongside financial performance as a genuine measure of success here. NPS, reputation data, and service delivery standards all feed into how this role is evaluated, which reflects how Yugo positions itself in the student housing market.

What Strong Candidates Bring

• 12 or more years of progressive leadership in student housing, multifamily, or a related real estate operating environment
• Meaningful experience managing large, geographically dispersed portfolios through regional leadership teams
• A real track record in third-party fee management, including owner relationship development and new business integration
• Deep financial fluency: P&L ownership, annual budgeting, forecasting discipline, and NOI performance management
• Specific experience with student housing leasing cycles, occupancy strategy, and the timing pressures that come with academic calendars
• Demonstrated success turning around underperforming assets, not just stabilizing performing ones
• The credibility to represent the company externally with owners, partners, and industry audiences

Student housing operates on a leasing calendar that doesn't forgive slow decisions. The window to correct occupancy heading into the next academic year closes faster than in conventional multifamily. Candidates who've only managed conventional portfolios often underestimate how compressed the response cycle is. Experience specifically in student housing, or at minimum a clear understanding of pre-lease pacing and its relationship to annual revenue, separates strong candidates from those who need time to calibrate.

From a career trajectory standpoint, this role is a natural landing point for someone who has run regional operations at scale and wants full P&L ownership at the portfolio level. It also builds the kind of cross-functional leadership experience, finance partnership, client management, organizational development, that tends to open doors to President or COO roles over time. The third-party management dimension is worth noting specifically: executives who can grow and retain fee management clients carry a skillset that translates broadly across the industry, where fee compression and client retention are ongoing concerns for most platforms.