Director, Operational Excellence

Job summary

Job summary The Director, Operational Excellence is responsible for leading the Boulder site's Operational Excellence strategy and a global portfolio of continuous improvement initiatives, transformational projects, and Lean maturity programs that drive sustainable business performance and customer value. This role provides leadership to a team of Operational Excellence professionals and partners closely with business leaders across the organization to accelerate continuous improvement, strengthen organizational capabilities, and deliver measurable operational and financial results.

The Director serves as a catalyst for cultural transformation by embedding Operational Excellence principles into daily operations, developing Lean leaders at all levels, and empowering employees to identify and implement meaningful improvements. Through coaching, capability building, strategy deployment, and cross‑functional collaboration, the Director ensures the successful execution of improvement initiatives while establishing robust, scalable, and sustainable business processes that support the organization’s strategic objectives.

This role is accountable for fostering a culture of continuous improvement, operational discipline, innovation, and accountability across the global network.

Lead the development and deployment of the Operational Excellence (OpEx) framework and strategy to support business objectives and foster a culture of continuous improvement.

Identify, prioritize, and drive global, site, and functional improvement opportunities that enhance customer value, improve performance, and eliminate waste through Lean methodologies, Value Stream Mapping, Kaizen, and Strategy Deployment (Hoshin Kanri).

Develop and manage a portfolio of transformational continuous improvement initiatives across the enterprise, ensuring alignment with global, site, and functional objectives.

Lead high‑impact, cross‑functional improvement projects from opportunity identification through implementation and sustainability, delivering measurable business results.

Build organizational capability through coaching, mentoring, training, and development of OpEx leaders, enabling teams to independently drive continuous improvement and operational excellence.

Lead and support a network of Operational Excellence practitioners, ensuring alignment in project execution, reporting, recognition, communication, and best‑practice sharing across the organization.

Partner with business and functional leaders to establish meaningful performance metrics, drive data‑based decision‑making, and improve operational effectiveness.

Design and deliver scalable OpEx tools, learning programs, and capability‑building initiatives that accelerate adoption, competency development, and continuous improvement maturity.

Collaborate with cross‑functional stakeholders to identify improvement opportunities, remove barriers, and ensure sustained achievement of project benefits.

Champion business process management principles to simplify workflows, eliminate non‑value‑added activities, and drive process standardization, innovation, and performance.

Support the integration of digital, automation, and AI‑enabled solutions within the Operational Excellence framework to eliminate waste, improve productivity, enhance process visibility, and accelerate continuous improvement outcomes.

Develop and communicate compelling operational performance reports, dashboards, presentations, and visual management tools that support transparency, engagement, and decision‑making.

Provide strategic guidance to ensure business transformations, organizational changes, capital investments, and operational initiatives align with the enterprise OpEx strategy.

Promote alignment between Operational Excellence initiatives and the organization’s culture, values, and strategic priorities.

Support operational assessments, risk management activities, technology implementations, and manufacturing innovation initiatives as required.

Serve as a subject‑matter expert in Lean, Six Sigma, Change Management, Business Process Management, and Strategy Deployment methodologies.

Lead and…