Global Director, Operational Excellence COE

Global Director, Operational Excellence COE At Nouryon, our global team takes positive action every day, to reach higher collectively and individually. We create innovative and sustainable solutions for our customers to answer society’s needs – today and in the future. We are looking for team members who bring ideas forward, champion others and work together to do better. Does that sound like you? About the job The Global Director, Operational Excellence (OpEx) COE is a senior leadership role responsible for defining the strategic direction, standards, and governance of Nouryon’s global OpEx program. This role owns the organizational design, frameworks, methodologies, and capability pipelines that enable sustainable continuous improvement across 63 manufacturing sites in the Integrated Supply Chain (ISC) organization – spanning the Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacific. This role is the architect of OpEx productivity engine. The COE Director owns the design of the systems, standards, and organizational capabilities that enable VMC and FMC delivery – including ownership of the enterprise systems of record for productivity tracking (ANT) and performance reporting (PowerBI). Execution of productivity targets is driven through the regional OpEx Manager network; this role ensures those teams are equipped, aligned, and operating within a governance structure capable of sustaining results. This role leads a newly consolidated Center of Excellence that brings together CI methodology and Lean/Six Sigma certification, ISC Learning & Development, End-to-End Process Management, and Manufacturing Excellence under a single governance structure. The COE Director sets priorities, establishes the program architecture, and holds accountability for outcomes – operating through a team of direct reports who own execution across regions. Key relationships span the COO, regional OpEx Managers, Site Directors, and ISC functional leaders across three regions. This is a permanent, full-time position reporting to the VP, Global Operational Excellence & Digital Manufacturing, based in a Nouryon regional hub (Amsterdam, Houston, or Shanghai) with global travel of 15–25%. In your future role as the Global Director, Operational Excellence COE, you will CI Methodology, Standards & Governance Own the global Operational Excellence methodology, ensuring a consistent, fit-for-purpose CI framework is deployed across all 63 Nouryon manufacturing sites. Define and govern the Lean/Six Sigma certification pathway from Yellow Belt through Master Black Belt, establishing quality standards for program content, assessment, and progression. Partner with regional OpEx Managers to translate global standards into site-level execution plans, maintaining strategic alignment while enabling regional adaptation. Establish and sustain a durable CI Governance model – defining the review cadence, accountability structure, and performance mechanisms that ensure CI maturity compounds over time across the Nouryon network. Own the enterprise systems of record for productivity tracking and performance reporting, including the ANT productivity platform and PowerBI reporting architecture, ensuring data integrity and leadership visibility across all sites. ISC Learning & Development Lead the design and continuous improvement of the ISC Learning & Development program, spanning CI capability, technical skills, and leadership development for the ISC organization. Direct the L&D team to build and maintain a structured curriculum that supports onboarding, role progression, and organizational capability uplift. Connect L&D investment directly to VMC and FMC delivery targets, ensuring program outcomes are measurable and business-relevant. Own the design mandate for Digital Literacy and AI capability across the ISC organization – defining the people, process, and metrics framework required to build and sustain enterprise AI competency at scale. This includes establishing program objectives, identifying ownership, and proposing a deployment model aligned to Nouryon’s broader digital strategy. End-to-End Process Management Own the ISC End-to-End process architecture, defining process standards, documentation requirements, and governance for core ISC value streams. Drive process modeling and SIPOC-level design across ISC, working through the Process Modeler and Global Process Owner to ensure clarity of accountability and performance standards. Identify and close process design gaps that create risk, inefficiency, or measurement inconsistency across the ISC organization. Manufacturing Excellence Define the Manufacturing Excellence framework for Nouryon, including OEE, TPM, reliability, and asset performance standards applied across the manufacturing network. Direct the Manufacturing Excellence Manager to develop and deploy site-level improvement programs, closing the loop between plant performance data and structured intervention. Integrate manufacturing excellence priorities into the broader OpEx roadmap, ensuring alignment with Digital Manufacturing, Palantir-enabled analytics, and capital investment decisions. People Leadership & COE Development Lead a geographically distributed team of nine direct reports Define team structure, role clarity, and succession priorities for the COE Build a high-performance COE culture grounded in Nouryon’s Leadership Capability Framework This role requires approximately 15–25% global travel across the Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacific. Key Performance Indicators The Global Director, Operational Excellence COE is measured against the same Breakthrough KPIs as the VP, Global Operational Excellence & Digital Manufacturing. This alignment is intentional – the COE’s organizational design, capability systems, and governance structures exist to enable these outcomes. Execution is driven through the regional OpEx Manager network; this role is accountable for building and sustaining the organization capable of delivering them. People Safet