Operations director vs commercial director

The differences between operations directors and commercial directors can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. While it typically takes 4-6 years to become an operations director, becoming a commercial director takes usually requires 8-10 years. Additionally, a commercial director has an average salary of $143,615, which is higher than the $104,050 average annual salary of an operations director.

The top three skills for an operations director include customer service, continuous improvement and oversight. The most important skills for a commercial director are project management, kpis, and healthcare.

Operations director vs commercial director overview

	Operations Director	Commercial Director
Yearly salary	$104,050	$143,615
Hourly rate	$50.02	$69.05
Growth rate	6%	10%
Number of jobs	114,993	97,667
Job satisfaction	-	-
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 67%	Bachelor's Degree, 67%
Average age	44	39
Years of experience	6	10

What does an operations director do?

Operations directors oversee all company operations. They have the power to set the direction, change the course of the organization, and reform strategies to ensure efficiency in how the company operates. Operations directors manage business operations effectively by constantly analyzing company data and by anticipating any challenge that may come their way. As such, they make sound business decisions and recommendations that will help strengthen the organization. Operations directors oversee finances, quality control, and even human resources. They ensure that all aspects of the business are considered in making business operations decisions.

What does a commercial director do?

Commercial Directors are executives who manage the performance and subsequent growth of the company. They lead activities related to the commerce side of the business. Commercial directors study the current trends in both the economic market and in the industry that the business operates in. They also study their target market. With this research, they devise ways to ensure that a company's performance will not decline as they navigate the changing market landscape. Commercial Directors should have good foresight and strong analytical skills to make sense of the current trends and how they would affect their future.

Operations director vs commercial director salary

Operations directors and commercial directors have different pay scales, as shown below.

	Operations Director	Commercial Director
Average salary	$104,050	$143,615
Salary range	Between $65,000 And $164,000	Between $93,000 And $221,000
Highest paying City	San Francisco, CA	San Francisco, CA
Highest paying state	California	Massachusetts
Best paying company	Airbnb	Emergent BioSolutions
Best paying industry	Finance	Manufacturing

Differences between operations director and commercial director education

There are a few differences between an operations director and a commercial director in terms of educational background:

	Operations Director	Commercial Director
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 67%	Bachelor's Degree, 67%
Most common major	Business	Business
Most common college	University of Pennsylvania	University of Georgia

Operations director vs commercial director demographics

Here are the differences between operations directors' and commercial directors' demographics:

	Operations Director	Commercial Director
Average age	44	39
Gender ratio	Male, 70.6% Female, 29.4%	Male, 80.9% Female, 19.1%
Race ratio	Black or African American, 6.1% Unknown, 4.3% Hispanic or Latino, 14.9% Asian, 6.3% White, 67.9% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.5%	Black or African American, 3.0% Unknown, 5.3% Hispanic or Latino, 8.7% Asian, 8.2% White, 74.6% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2%
LGBT Percentage	10%	10%

Differences between operations director and commercial director duties and responsibilities

Operations director example responsibilities.

Manage KPI reports from all warranty companies to ensure increasing sales and productivity.
Spearhead governance, security and compliance initiatives to achieve SOX and PCI compliance.
Manage a PMO style team to implement any changes across the global contact centers.
Develop all marketing strategies and materials as well as personally managing key OEM and national accounts.
Manage multiple vendor relationships for RFP development and review, contract negotiation, contract terms management, and accounts payable review.
Provide leadership to manufacturing organization by aligning overall KPIs to achieve near term and long term business objectives.

Commercial director example responsibilities.

Monitor and manage budgets on each account to ensure high ROI and biggest bang for each buck.
Lead start-up of new far-east OEM partner, including selection process, technical & manufacturing management and relationship development.
Lead global project to commercialize expand portfolio of adhesive utilizing company synergies to establish a strong, highly-competitive distribution channel.
Define and implement the CRM and phone systems and infrastructure need to support commercialization efforts.
Create and maintain adoption measurement for SFDC resulting in increase usage of CRM tool, globally.
Institute metrics to document cost savings, purchase requisition turnaround, and number of POs issue.

Operations director vs commercial director skills

Common operations director skills

Customer Service, 12%
Continuous Improvement, 7%
Oversight, 7%
Patients, 6%
Project Management, 5%
Human Resources, 4%

Common commercial director skills

Project Management, 9%
KPIs, 8%
Healthcare, 8%
Business Development, 8%
Customer Service, 7%
Lead Generation, 5%

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Operations Director
Operations Director vs Commercial Director

Updated January 8, 2025

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