Site Director Stenungsund

At Nouryon, our global team takes positive action every day, to reach higher collectively and individually. We create innovative and sustainable solutions for our customers to answer society's needs — today and in the future.
We are looking for team members who bring ideas forward, champion others and work together to do better. Does that sound like you?

About the job

This is a unique opportunity to lead one of Nouryon's most strategically important manufacturing sites: a fully integrated, high-hazard Ethylene Oxide, Ethylene Amines, and Alkoxylates production complex. As Site Director, you carry overall accountability for safe, compliant, and reliable operations, for the site's commercial and financial performance, and for the leadership and continued development of a 325 FTE organization. Beyond steady-state operational excellence, this role is squarely about leading change: the site is in an active phase of organizational transformation, workforce upskilling, and safety-culture maturation, and the successful candidate will be judged as much on how they lead people through that change as on operational results.

• Asset Replacement Value – multiple millions of Euro´s
• Site profile – fully integrated Fully integrated, Seveso Upper Tier high-hazard complex producing Ethylene Oxide (EO), Ethylene Amines (EA), and Alkoxylates

In your future role as Site Director, you will

• Lead the site organization — chair and develop the Stenungsund site leadership team, and lead, coach, and hold accountable a 325 FTE organization operating a strategically critical, Seveso Upper Tier complex.
• Own safety, health, environment, and security — carry overall HSE accountability, including process safety, emergency preparedness, physical security, and cyber security, while maintaining full regulatory compliance under Seveso III and Swedish labor and environmental law.
• Drive safety culture maturity — lead a deliberate, measurable progression of the site's safety culture along the Bradley Curve, from today's reactive/dependent and independent behaviors toward Interdependent (Bradley Level 3) performance, closing the contractor safety engagement gap and embedding safety ownership at every level, from operators to leadership.
• Lead and manage change — act as the visible sponsor and architect of the site's change agenda (organizational redesign, digitalization, ways of working), applying structured change management to build genuine buy-in, manage resistance, and sustain adoption rather than compliance.
• Build workforce capability — define and drive a site-wide upskilling and competence agenda — technical, leadership, and behavioral-safety skills — ensuring the workforce keeps pace with technology, regulatory, and process complexity, and building a credible succession and talent pipeline.
• Own the site's operating budget — carry overall responsibility for the Stenungsund fixed manufacturing cost/OpEx budget, driving productivity and cost efficiency without compromising safety or reliability.
• Manage cost and productivity performance — capture structural efficiency gains across both fixed and variable cost; lift workforce productivity and the share of value-added time; offset input, energy, and wage inflation through a genuine reduction in fixed unit cost rather than one-off savings; drive role flexibilisation and smarter ways of working; and scale the use of AI and digitalization to structurally lower the site's cost base and improve decision speed.
• Lead the site investment portfolio — govern and prioritize the CAPEX portfolio (including Long-Term Asset Plan and turnaround investment decisions) to support growth, compliance, reliability, and sustainability objectives.
• Maximize asset performance — drive asset utilization, operational reliability, and plant performance through strategic maintenance, turnaround management, and continuous reliability improvement.
• Secure quality and supply — ensure product quality and compliance across all products via robust quality management systems, and secure reliable production, logistics, and supply chain execution.
• Build a high-performing, inclusive organization — foster strong employee engagement, leadership excellence, and constructive labor relations, including with Unions.
• Drive sustainability — advance the site's decarbonization, resource efficiency, and long-term sustainability transformation.
• Represent Nouryon externally — build and maintain strong relationships with authorities, industry partners, local communities, and customers.
• This role is based full-time at the site in Sweden, with occasional travel across the Nouryon network, to customers, industry forums, and cluster meetings (approx. 5–10% of your time).

We believe you bring

• Extensive senior leadership experience in high-hazard process industries, including accountability for manufacturing operations, safety, reliability, capital projects, and continuous improvement.
• A demonstrated track record leading organizational change or transformation in an industrial setting — able to name what changed, how you led it, and how you sustained it.
• Experience improving safety culture maturity using a recognized behavioral safety model (e.g. Bradley Curve, Dupont Bradley, or equivalent), with evidence of measurable progress toward interdependent, self-sustaining safety behaviors.
• Experience building organizational capability at scale — competence frameworks, training programs, or upskilling initiatives across a multi-disciplinary workforce.
• Profound knowledge of Process Safety, Asset Integrity, and HSE, ideally in a Seveso Upper Tier or comparable high-hazard, high-consequence environment.
• Strong commercial and financial understanding, with experience managing large operational (OpEx) and capital (CAPEX) budgets and driving performance through data-driven decision-making.
• A demonstrated track record of structurally improving fixed and variable cost performance and workforce productivity — offsetting inflation in fixed unit cost, growing value-added time, and using role flexibilisation and digitalization/AI as levers rather than one-off cost-cutting.
• Strong experience with Continuous Improvement methodologies (Lean, Six Sigma) and Integrated Business Planning.
• An experienced, collaborative people leader able to build trust across employees, unions, and stakeholders in a complex, multi-national organization.
• Master’s degree in chemical engineering, Process Engineering, or a related discipline (or a Bachelor's/PhD in a comparable field); a Ph.D. and further business education are a plus.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills, comfortable operating in both Swedish site and international Nouryon contexts.

Great if you have

• Formal change management training or certification (e.g. Prosci, Kotter, or equivalent).
• Direct experience running or sponsoring a behavioral-based safety program, with before/after evidence of culture change.
• Six Sigma Green Belt, Black Belt, or Master Black Belt certification.
• Broad process industry experience across multiple functions, and experience in Sweden or a similar Nordic/European regulatory and labor relations environment.
• Hands-on experience deploying AI or digital tools to drive productivity, cost, or workforce flexibility gains on an industrial site.

We believe you embrace our Nouryon values in everyday life: Aim high, Own it & Do it right! You demand high standards and build a culture of ownership and accountability within your organization. You communicate promptly, accurately, and transparently to build trust, both internally and with customers. You challenge the status quo through a continuous improvement mindset, embedding data, analysis, and reasoning into decision-making. You build an environment that values shared success and collaboration at an enterprise level.

We offer you

A unique opportunity to join and lead a world-class site organization, to shape a decisive change and upskilling agenda, and to push the boundaries of operational and safety excellence — allowing the Stenungsund site to deliver on all stakeholder aspects. At Nouryon, we provide a great job and friendly co-workers, plus benefits in addition to salary. Our collective agreement is with IKEM. We also offer perks such as bonus, reduced hours, health care allowance, lunch allowance, and more.

Have we got your interest?

This is a permanent, full-time position, reporting to Geert Bonte, Vice President Operations Europe, Regional ISC, and based in Stenungsund. Please apply via our online recruitment system. We do not accept applications via e-mail. Once received, we will review your application to assess fit with the role. For more information about our hiring process, visit nouryon.com/careers/how-we-hire/.

As an applicant, you will be subject to a background check before employment; you will receive more information about this later in the recruitment process.

We work actively and systematically with HSE matters to ensure a safe and sustainable working environment for our employees. As an employee, you may therefore be required to undergo drug testing on a random basis, as part of our commitment to safeguarding the safety and well-being of our staff.
We look forward to receiving your application!

About Nouryon

If you're looking for your next career move, apply today and join Nouryon's worldwide team in providing essential solutions that our customers use to manufacture everyday products such as personal care, cleaning, paints and coatings, agriculture and food, pharmaceuticals, and building products. Our employees are driven by the wish to make an impact and actively drive positive change. From day one we support you with your personal growth, through challenging positions and comprehensive learning and development opportunities, in a dynamic, international, diverse, and proactive working environment.
Visit our website and follow us on LinkedIn.

Contact

For additional information about the vacancy please contact hiring manager Geert Bonte, Vice President Operations Europe, Regional ISC, at geert.bonte@nouryon.com.
If you have any questions about the recruitment process or your application, or need assistance, please contact Recruiting.SE@Nouryon.com.

For union related questions: 

Unionen: Magnus Svensson – Magnus.Svensson@nouryon.com

Akademikerna: Jessica Andersson – jessica.andersson@nouryon.com

#WeAreNouryon #GrowWithUs

We have already chosen our sourcing channels for this recruitment and kindly ask not to be contacted by any advertisement agents, recruitment agencies, or staffing companies.

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