Sr. Director, Quality Assurance & Food Safety

The Sr. Director of Quality Assurance, Regulatory, and Food Safety is responsible for building, leading, and continuously improving the enterprise systems that protect Zaxbys guests, franchisees, team members, products, and brand reputation. This leader owns the strategy, standards, governance, and execution across Quality Assurance, Commercialization, and Food Safety and Regulatory. The role ensures core products consistently meet approved specifications, food safety requirements, regulatory obligations, and restaurant execution standards.

This position partners cross-functionally with Supply Chain, Culinary, Operations, Marketing, Legal, Training, and franchisee stakeholders to translate business needs into practical programs that improve product consistency, compliance, and risk management. This position requires an established, high-energy leader who can strengthen the quality assurance function while elevating commercialization discipline and regulatory readiness for the next stage of growth. The Sr. Director must be comfortable operating at both strategic and hands‑on levels, building scalable processes, coaching leaders, influencing across a franchise system, and driving accountability with suppliers, distributors, internal partners, and restaurants.

As we continue to grow, our strategies have set us up for success to be the top offering in Chicken Fingerz, Boneless Wings, and Zalads. We’d love to have you as part of our team!

• Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance
• Company-Paid Disability, Critical Illness, and Basic Life Insurance
• 401K with Company Match
• 50% Off Meal Discount at Company-Owned Locations
• Parental Leave
• Child Care Assistance
• Education Assistance Program
• PTO and 9 Company Holidays + 2 Floating Holidays

Essential duties may include but are not limited to the following:

• Set the enterprise vision, roadmap, operating model, KPIs, and governance for Quality Assurance, Commercialization, and Food Safety and Regulatory.
• Lead the Quality Assurance vertical responsible for adherence to approved specifications for core products, including product attributes, sensory expectations, supplier performance, corrective actions, and ongoing monitoring.
• Build and scale a commercialization discipline that translates culinary and business intent into supplier‑ready specifications, validation plans, production trials, launch requirements, and post‑launch performance monitoring.
• Lead supplier and product approval processes for new suppliers, new products, product changes, limited‑time offers, and alternate supply, ensuring quality, food safety, and operations considerations are addressed before launch.
• Own the enterprise product specification system and related controls, including specification creation, version control, documentation, approvals, change management, and cross‑functional communication.
• Lead Food Safety & Regulatory programs covering restaurant food safety standards, product regulations, supplier compliance, labeling, nutrition/allergen controls, packaging and extended producer responsibility requirements, traceability, recall readiness, and other emerging regulatory obligations.
• Monitor evolving federal, state, local, and industry regulatory activity and translate requirements into practical policies, standards, training, tools, and operating procedures for the business.
• Strengthen traceability, mock recall, withdrawal, complaint investigation, crisis response, and incident management processes to ensure rapid, compliant, and brand‑protective action.
• Establish supplier quality and food safety expectations, audit standards, risk tiering, scorecards, corrective action processes, and escalation paths in partnership with Procurement and Supply Chain.
• Lead root…