E2E and Accelerate Lead

About Kerry

Kerry is the world's leading taste and nutrition company for the food, beverage and pharmaceutical industries. Every day we partner with customers to create healthier, tastier and more sustainable products that are consumed by billions of people across the world. Our vision is to be our customers' most valued partner, creating a world of sustainable nutrition. A career with Kerry offers you an opportunity to shape the future of food while providing opportunities to explore and grow in a truly global environment.

Performance and Accelerate Lead
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This position will lead Coatings & Proteins Extrusion End to End (E2E) Performance & Accelerate program, with responsibility for delivering sustainable performance improvements across Quality, Service and Asset Efficiencies, to deliver margin enhancement to the P&L. Accountable for driving network‑wide operations performance improvement across the Coatings technology cluster.

• Lead E2E Performance & Accelerate program for the business, ensuring performance enhancement priorities and resource allocation aligned to business priorities
• Quality Right-the-First Time, Foreign Material & Complaints Reduction
• Operations Asset Efficiency Plans, de‑bottlenecking and yield loss reductions, to deliver capacity unlock and cost reductions through OEE improvement
• Process technology & product optimization – work with cross‑functional teams (engineering, operations, RD&A) to deliver operational enhancements through portfolio, product and/or process optimization
• Supply chain schedule and portfolio optimization (site & network); including adoption and embedding of AI tools to standardize and optimize
• Performance governance, accountability and financial performance – ensure project deliverables, timelines and financial performance is tracked and delivered in line with budget / target, partnering with Operations Finance Lead
• People development, training and best practice enablement – enable best practice sharing and standardization of best‑in‑class performance across cluster, ensuring training programs, SOPs and process maps documented and supporting continuous evolution of training programs for new and existing employees, partnering with HR Lead
• Support Cluster VP to embed best‑in‑class ways of working, including standard work, tiered performance management, structured problem solving, and value stream management
• Decision making & influence – own strategy development, deployment, prioritization, and sequencing within defined network scope and with alignment with business leadership; influence and partner with business, site and regional leaders without direct authority; dotted line reporting leader for site‑based performance and accelerate leads; recommend improvement priorities based on performance data and business needs; escaltate systemic risks with evidence‑based recommendations
• Impact & complexity – influence core manufacturing KPIs across multiple plants; operate across 7 (Coatings & Proteins Extrusion) sites, functions, and leadership levels; manage competing site priorities while driving standardized systems; scale CI methodologies to diverse operational environments

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Manufacturing, Industrial Technology, or related field
• 7‑10+ years’ experience in manufacturing with proven results in operations leadership roles (e.g., management or director level roles in operations, supply chain, engineering, maintenance), continuous improvement or operational excellence roles
• Technology competency preferred in blending, baking and/or extrusion technologies
• Strong expertise in lean manufacturing tools and systems (PDCA, Kaizen, 5S, VSM, problem solving)
• Adept understanding of TPM principles and equipment reliability
• Proven ability to lead change and influence across multiple sites
• Strong analytical, data‑driven problem‑solving capability (Six Sigma and SPC understanding desired)
• Project management experience with ability to influence and partner across variety of business and functional areas

• Business Leadership Team (Business GM, Commercial & Integrated Operations Leadership)
• Pla…