Operations Director

## Operations Director – North America

The Operations Director – North America leads, supports, and improves operational performance across all North American manufacturing locations, including plants in the United States and Mexico. This position provides regional oversight, drives operational excellence, ensures consistent execution of company standards, and partners closely with Plant Managers and functional leaders to achieve safety, quality, delivery, cost, productivity, and customer satisfaction objectives.

The role reports directly to the Chief Operating Officer – North America, is based at the North America headquarters in Troy, Michigan, and requires frequent travel to manufacturing locations throughout the United States and Mexico.

The ideal candidate has current or prior experience as a Plant Manager in a manufacturing environment, preferably within the automotive industry, and brings a strong combination of hands-on plant leadership, multi-site operational discipline, financial acumen, people leadership, and continuous improvement expertise.

### Regional Operations Leadership

Provide operational leadership, guidance, and support to Plant Managers across all North American manufacturing locations. Ensure each plant operates in alignment with company expectations for safety, quality, delivery, cost, productivity, profitability, and customer satisfaction.

Partner with the COO to execute the regional operations strategy and ensure consistent deployment of business priorities across all sites. Monitor overall plant performance and identify risks, gaps, and opportunities requiring corrective action or leadership support. Promote a high-performance culture focused on accountability, urgency, teamwork, operational discipline, and continuous improvement.

Serve as a key escalation point for significant operational issues, customer concerns, production disruptions, staffing constraints, capacity issues, and performance shortfalls. Support Plant Managers in developing and executing short-term and long-term operational plans.

### Plant Performance and KPI Management

Review and analyze key plant performance indicators, including safety, scrap, quality defects, customer complaints, on-time delivery, labor efficiency, downtime, productivity, inventory, overtime, absenteeism, and cost performance. Drive consistent use of operational dashboards, plant scorecards, daily management systems, and standard reporting across all locations.

Lead regular performance reviews with Plant Managers and regional leadership to evaluate progress against objectives. Identify underperforming areas and work with plant leadership to develop corrective action plans with clear ownership, timing, and measurable results. Ensure that plant leadership teams understand the financial and operational impact of their performance decisions. Support the development and achievement of annual budgets, forecasts, operational targets, and productivity goals.

### Safety and Compliance

Champion a safety-first culture throughout all North American plants. Ensure plant leadership teams maintain strong safety programs, incident prevention practices, corrective actions, and compliance with company and regulatory requirements. Partner with EHS leadership to support safety audits, training, risk assessments, incident investigations, and corrective action follow-up. Reinforce accountability for safe work practices at all levels of the organization. Support compliance with applicable federal, state, provincial, local, and country-specific regulations within the United States and Mexico.

### Quality, Customer Satisfaction, and Delivery

Support plant leadership in meeting internal and external quality expectations. Partner with Quality, Engineering, Program Management, Supply Chain, and Commercial teams to resolve customer issues and prevent recurrence. Ensure plants maintain strong customer focus, timely communication, and disciplined problem-solving practices. Support launch readiness, production ramp-ups, engineering changes, customer audits, and major operational transitions. Drive accountability for on-time delivery, schedule adherence, production stability, and customer satisfaction. Help remove operational barriers impacting customer commitments.

### Continuous Improvement and Operational Excellence

Lead and support continuous improvement initiatives across the North American region. Promote lean manufacturing principles, standard work, 5S, visual management, waste reduction, labor optimization, and disciplined problem solving. Identify best practices within individual plants and drive replication across the region.

Support productivity improvement initiatives, cost reduction projects, material flow improvements, layout optimization, and efficiency improvements. Work with plant teams to identify root causes of recurring operational issues and implement sustainable countermeasures. Drive consistency in operating practices, procedures, reporting, and management routines across all North American locations.

### Financial and Cost Management

Partner with Plant Managers, Finance, and the COO to monitor plant financial performance. Support initiatives to improve profitability, reduce operating costs, control labor spend, reduce scrap, improve efficiency, and optimize overhead. Review plant budgets, forecasts, capital needs, cost reduction plans, and operational expense trends.

Ensure plant leaders understand and actively manage financial performance drivers. Support business cases for capital investments, operational improvements, staffing changes, equipment needs, and facility improvements. Drive accountability for meeting approved financial and operational targets.

### People Leadership and Organizational Development

Provide coaching, guidance, and support to Plant Managers and plant leadership teams. Help strengthen leadership capability, accountability, communication, and decision-making across the region. Partner