VP of NPI; Semiconductor Capital Equipment

SBT is the exclusive executive recruiting firm for this confidential position.

This is a confidential, well-funded company building the precision tools behind a next-generation manufacturing process. After years of proving the technology in R&D, they're standing up a new business unit to take their laser-based tools from working prototypes to repeatable, high-volume production — built through strategic contract‑manufacturing partners and deployed at scale internationally. This is a ground‑up leadership role: you'll own NPI as a company‑wide function, hire and lead the team, and put in place the processes that don't exist yet.

• Own the NPI lifecycle for complex precision tools — R&D prototype through pilot build to volume ramp — and build and lead the supply chain, manufacturing, and NPI engineering team that executes it.
• Bridge R&D and manufacturing: partner with design engineers to make tools producible, inspectable, serviceable, and repeatable, and translate nimble prototype work into controlled, copy‑exact production.
• Develop and manage strategic contract manufacturers and suppliers — qualification, performance, engineering change, and the deep engineering‑to‑engineering relationships that custom components demand.
• Stand up the processes, documentation, and metrics a young manufacturing org needs — calibrated to where the company actually is, not imported wholesale from a large company.
• Drive build, integration, and test of prototype and pilot tools to functional acceptance, and lead root‑cause problem solving when sourcing, build, or integration issues surface.

• A track record taking complex capital equipment from R&D to repeatable manufacturing — ideally tools involving precision motion control, optical, or precision mechanical alignment.
• Real depth developing contract manufacturers and strategic suppliers, not just managing ones already in place.
• Someone who came up close to engineering — enough to earn credibility with an R&D team used to doing things its own way — and made the shift to manufacturing thinking themselves.
• Comfort operating in a low‑maturity, fast‑moving environment: building structure where there isn't any, without bulldozing the people you need to bring along.
• A plus: laser systems and laser safety, copy‑exact deployment, and experience scaling production in Asia.