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 you opportunities to explore and grow in a truly global environment.

This Performance and Accelerate Lead 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 enhance margin in the P&L. The role is accountable for driving network‑wide operations performance improvement across the Coatings technology cluster, accelerating performance in safety, quality, service and cost by embedding best‑in‑class ways of working, building leadership capability and enabling sustainable change at scale.

• Lead the E2E Performance & Accelerate program, ensuring performance enhancement priorities and resource allocation are aligned with business priorities.
• Improve Quality Right‑the‑First Time, Foreign Material & Complaints Reduction.
• Advance Operations Asset Efficiency Plans, De‑Bottlenecking and Yield Loss reductions to unlock capacity and reduce costs through OEE improvement.
• Optimize Processes and Products by collaborating with engineering, operations and RD&A teams to deliver operational enhancements across portfolios, product lines and processes.
• Optimize Supply Chain Schedule and Portfolio (Site & Network), adopting and embedding AI tools for standardization and efficiency.
• Govern Performance, Accountability and Financial performance – track and deliver project deliverables, timelines and financial outcomes in line with budget/target, partnering with the Operations Finance Lead.
• Develop and share best practices – enable training programs, SOPs and process maps across the cluster, support continuous evolution of training programs for new and existing employees in partnership with the HR Lead.
• Support the Cluster VP to embed best‑in‑class ways of working, including standard work, tiered performance management, structured problem solving and value stream management.
• Own and execute the Performance & Accelerate strategy, deployment, prioritization and sequencing within the network scope, aligning with business leadership.
• Influence and partner with business, site and regional leaders without direct authority.
• Lead dotted-line reporting for site‑based performance and accelerate leads.
• Recommend improvement priorities based on performance data and business needs.
• Escalate systemic risks with evidence‑based recommendations.
• Impact and Complexity:
  • Impact – influence core manufacturing KPIs across multiple plants.
  • Breadth – operate across 7 Coatings & Proteins Extrusion sites, functions and leadership levels.
  • Complexity – manage competing site priorities while driving standardised systems.
  • Innovation – scale CI methodologies to diverse operational environments.

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Manufacturing, Industrial Technology or a related field.
• 7‑10+ years’ experience in manufacturing with proven results in operations leadership roles (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 a variety of business and functional areas.

• Business Leadership Team (Business GM,…