Regional Operations Director of Americas

The Regional Director of Operations Americas provides strategic leadership and governance across all BU Operations sites in the United States, Brazil, and Mexico. This role ensures a harmonized operating system, safe and efficient performance, reliable on-time delivery, and forward-looking workforce capability across the region. It sets common standards, priorities and performance expectations while preserving appropriate operational freedom for General Managers and Plant Managers to lead their sites, make timely local decisions and respond to customers and employees.

Core accountabilities

• Lead the regional operations agenda and translate BU and global operations strategy into clear priorities, standards and execution plans for the Americas sites.

• Establish and sustain harmonized core operations processes, governance routines, definitions, and management systems across the region, in alignment with global standards.

• Define the non-negotiable operating framework and decision rights, while enabling General Managers and Plant Managers to retain accountability and operational freedom within that framework.

• Drive site and regional performance in safety, on-time delivery, quality, productivity, cost, working capital and customer service through robust review, escalation, and improvement mechanisms.

• Act as the senior operational partner to site leaders, providing challenge, coaching, cross-site coordination and support without displacing local line accountability.

• Identify systemic risks, capacity constraints and performance gaps early, ensure transparent escalation and sponsor corrective or transformational actions when regional intervention is required.

Tasks and responsibilities

• Own the regional operations strategy, annual priorities and performance cadence, aligned with the BU President Operations and global functional leaders.

• Champion Safety@Work across all sites by reinforcing consistent expectations, governance, leading indicators, incident learning, audit follow-up, and a culture in which safety is integral to every operational decision.

• Improve OTD and service reliability by ensuring disciplined production planning, capacity visibility, constraint management, effective escalation, and cross-site collaboration.

• Drive sustainable efficiency and productivity improvement through operational excellence, lean manufacturing, process standardization, digitalization, automation, and structured problem solving.

• Lead regional capacity and footprint thinking, including business continuity, capital prioritization, and network optimization recommendations.

• Coordinate strategic workforce planning with site leadership and HR, translating demand, technology, productivity and footprint scenarios into capability, headcount, succession, and skills requirements.

• Build a strong regional leadership pipeline by coaching site leaders, supporting succession planning and enabling exchange of talent and expertise across sites.

• Ensure consistent operating reviews with clear KPIs, actions, owners, and follow-through; provide concise and transparent reporting to BU leadership.

• Facilitate sharing and replication of best practices across the Americas and contribute regional expertise to global operations communities and improvement programs.

• Partner with Quality, Supply Chain, Finance, HR, Engineering, Product Line Management, IT and Safety@Work to resolve cross-functional issues and deliver integrated outcomes.

• Sponsor major improvement, recovery, and transformation programs, including post-acquisition integration and process harmonization where applicable.

• Ensure operational compliance with applicable laws, internal policies, the Integrated Management System, and delegated authorities; reinforce timely closure of audit and risk actions.

• Provide leadership during critical incidents, significant customer or supply disruptions and business continuity events, ensuring coordinated decisions and communication. • Serve as process and document owner, or executive sponsor, for assigned regional operations processes in accordance with IMS governance.

Education and experience

• Bachelor’s Degree is required.

• 10+ yrs of senior leadership experience in multi-site manufacturing operations, ideally across more than one country in the Americas.

• Demonstrated experience leading General Managers, Plant Managers, or senior operations leaders in a matrixed, international organization.

• Proven record of improving safety, delivery, quality, productivity, and cost performance through operating systems and sustained continuous improvement.

• Experience with strategic workforce and capacity planning, capital allocation, operational risk, business continuity, and transformation programs.

• Experience harmonizing processes across diverse sites while respecting local legal, customer and operational requirements.

• Working knowledge of ERP, planning, performance management, and digital manufacturing environments; SAP experience is advantageous.

Competencies

• Strategic operations leadership with the ability to move fluently between enterprise priorities and site-level realities.

• Strong business and financial acumen, including P&L drivers, investment cases, productivity, working capital and operational risk.

• Advanced capability in operational excellence, lean systems, problem solving, performance management and change leadership.

• Ability to define governance and decision rights that create consistency without unnecessary centralization.

• Credible, clear, and concise communication with executives, customers, site leaders, and shop floor teams.

• High influencing, coaching and conflict-resolution capability across functions, cultures, and organizational levels.

• Data-driven judgment, disciplined follow-through, and the courage to escalate material risks and performance gaps.

• Fluent English required; Spanish and/or Portuguese are advantageous for the regional scope.

Geography and travel requirements

Geography: All BU Operations sites in the United States, Brazil, and Mexico. Travel: Frequent regional travel and periodic international travel are required. The role should maintain visible presence at sites and participate in global operations forums. The exact travel level will vary with business priorities, site performance, and transformation activity.

Compensation and benefits

The final compensation offered to the candidate may be based on geographical location, work experience and/or skill level. Additions to the compensation package, including but not limited to paid time off, insurance benefits and 401(k) eligibility, will be outlined at the time of the job offer.