Managing Director, Process Safety Laboratory

Job Description

In compliance with applicable pay transparency requirements, the application window for this position is expected to close on October 30, 2026, subject to change based on business need.

A Day in the Life and the Impact You’ll Make:

The General Manager, Process Safety Testing is the on-site business, people, safety, and technical leader for the Princeton Process Safety Testing Laboratory. This role is responsible for creating and sustaining a strong safety culture, developing leaders and employees, fostering accountability, and building an engaged, high-performing team. The General Manager provides leadership and oversight for the DEKRA Princeton Process Safety Laboratory, with responsibility for P&L performance, safety, equipment reliability, quality, and profitable growth.

The role combines engineering and production-minded leadership with laboratory experience and serves as a visible partner to customers, Sales, Marketing, Consulting, and shared services. This position also serves on the Process Safety North America leadership team. The General Manager translates market demand into executable laboratory capacity by improving local processes, increasing asset reliability and utilization, maintaining accreditations and regulatory compliance, and delivering a consistent customer experience across the Process Safety business.

Long-term success in this role requires more than operational and technical leadership. This position is responsible for strengthening the site’s culture, developing people and local leaders, and reinforcing an environment where safety, accountability, engagement, and continuous improvement shapes how the organization operates every day.

About DEKRA's Princeton Process Safety Laboratory

DEKRA's Princeton Process Safety Laboratory utilizes state-of-the-art equipment to help clients around the world understand and manage the risks associated with industrial dusts, powders, gases, vapors, and reactive chemicals. Serving industries such as pharmaceuticals, food, chemical processing, energy, and advanced materials, the laboratory conducts a wide range of process safety tests that support safer facility design, regulatory compliance, and operational excellence.

The team work alongside experienced scientists and engineers in a collaborative, hands-on environment, generating critical safety data that helps prevent incidents, protect employees, and improve industrial processes across some of the world's most innovative companies.

What You’ll Do:

Business Leadership and Growth

• Own the Princeton site P&L, annual operating plan, forecasts, capital priorities, and performance against revenue, margin, and budget commitments.
• Lead the site growth plan by connecting market opportunities, pricing, capacity, staffing, and investment decisions; identify risks early and bring practical solutions to senior leadership.
• Provide on-site leadership for daily laboratory operations in partnership with laboratory managers and technical leads, with clear ownership, priorities, and escalation paths.
• Establish and monitor practical operating metrics, including safety, quality, turnaround time, backlog, sample throughput, capacity, equipment utilization, on-time delivery, and financial performance.
• Drive standard work and continuous improvement across inquiry, test selection, quoting, project setup, scheduling, execution, reporting, invoicing, and collections handoffs.
• As appropriate, implement digital or AI-enabled improvements that reduce rework, shorten cycle time, improve visibility, and create a consistent customer experience.
• Ensure critical equipment has effective preventive maintenance, repair, reliability, calibration, spare-part, and capital replacement plans;…