Current Roles

Operations Director EMEA (Manufacturing/Engineering)
Salary: Base £120,000 + Bonus + Package Benefits (Flex)

Client

Our client designs, manufactures, and markets professional turf maintenance equipment, irrigation products and services worldwide. This highly successful market leader was founded over 100 years ago and its headquarters are in the US.

Position Summary

Our client is looking to recruit an Operations Director to oversee the manufacturing activities of 5 plants across the EMEA including their supply chains.  

The Operations Director will provide strategic leadership and guidance for operational activities of the organisation in the EMEA region with the objective of maximising growth and profitability as well as day-to-day leadership and management.

The Operations Director has overall responsibility for all functions covering health and safety, supply planning, sourcing, production, warehousing and logistics across all EMEA locations ensuring customer requirements are met on time while maintaining the highest level of quality and productivity.

This position reports to the Managing Director of the EMEA region with a dotted line reporting to the VP of Global Operations. The business is looking for an individual who can provide strong leadership to operations with the capacity and potential to develop into an overall business leader.

Core Responsibilities:

• Direct and coordinate activities at all EMEA locations through a team of direct reports ensuring on time customer deliveries for parts and whole goods
• Set productivity and performance targets for your team, monitor progress and make necessary course corrections to ensure such targets are met consistently
• Work closely with sales and marketing leaders, develop and implement action plans to align operations deliverables in line with agreed International division objectives
• Establish good ongoing communications and exchanges with global operations team
• Participate in global operations initiatives and contribute positively to sustain operational excellence
• Develop long range and annual business plans for each location and function within your realm of responsibility in conjunction with managers responsible for each
• Ensure all daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly reports are completed and delivered on time to the required schedule
• Be the champion for continuous improvement, lean, technology advancement, environment, health & safety and skills development for operations in region
• Identify development needs of team to meet business challenges and follow through with vigour
• Build a team of direct reports that delivers on its promises and takes collective responsibility for actions
• Be a mentor and coach to your team, while demanding results as committed in annual and long rage plans
• Take personal responsibility to ensure commitments made in annual plans and projections are delivered with reference to safety, quality, delivery and cost
• Cultivate and foster excellent inter-plant and inter-region cooperation and exchange of ideas, knowledge and best practice
• Be the point person in region for all matters related to operations – health & safety, manufacturing, quality, planning, sourcing, warehousing and logistics
• Establish and maintain good channels of communication with the operations leaders in US and APAC regions to ensure consistency of operational procedures and implementation of best practice ideas

Key Skills and Qualifications:

• Experience in leading multiple manufacturing plants across several countries in Europe 
• Significant experience in various functional areas of operations, including sourcing, warehousing, distribution & logistics, assembly operations, machining and plastics with proven experience in safety, quality, delivery and cost management, with a notable amount of these years in leadership positions
• Degree or Masters in Engineering, Business Administration, or similar
• Strong leadership and communication skills including ability to lead employees at remote locations
• Working knowledge of Lean Manufacturing principles and change management
• Good understanding of materials requirements planning and general systems along with a high financial acumen is a must.
• Ability to travel 25-40% of the time
• Excellent stakeholder management skills with the ability to deal with complex business matters and handle conflicts
• Commercial awareness with an eye for seeing business improvement opportunities and the tenacity to implement them
• Highly motivated with a passion for driving operational excellence and business change
• Perseverance and resilience to develop and sell ideas and see things through to completion
• Strong interpersonal skills. Ability to develop collaborative relationships and influence up, down, and across organizational lines
• Fluency in English (a nice to have would be fluency in other European languages such as German, Italian or Polish)

If this role is suitable and of interest please email your CV to George Woodward from Novo Executive Search.

• Operations Strategy/Planning
• Engineering Manufacturing
• Hertfordshire