Global Director, Operational Excellence COE

Global Director, Operational Excellence COE

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

The Global Director, Operational Excellence (OpEx) COE is a senior leadership role responsible for defining the strategic direction, standards, and governance of Nouryon’s global OpEx program. This role owns the organizational design, frameworks, methodologies, and capability pipelines that enable sustainable continuous improvement across 63 manufacturing sites in the Integrated Supply Chain (ISC) organization – spanning the Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacific.

This role is the architect of OpEx productivity engine. The COE Director owns the design of the systems, standards, and organizational capabilities that enable VMC and FMC delivery – including ownership of the enterprise systems of record for productivity tracking (ANT) and performance reporting (PowerBI). Execution of productivity targets is driven through the regional OpEx Manager network; this role ensures those teams are equipped, aligned, and operating within a governance structure capable of sustaining results.

This role leads a newly consolidated Center of Excellence that brings together CI methodology and Lean/Six Sigma certification, ISC Learning & Development, End-to-End Process Management, and Manufacturing Excellence under a single governance structure. The COE Director sets priorities, establishes the program architecture, and holds accountability for outcomes – operating through a team of direct reports who own execution across regions. Key relationships span the COO, regional OpEx Managers, Site Directors, and ISC functional leaders across three regions.

This is a permanent, full-time position reporting to the VP, Global Operational Excellence & Digital Manufacturing, based in a Nouryon regional hub (Amsterdam, Houston, or Shanghai) with global travel of 15–25%.

In your future role as the Global Director, Operational Excellence COE, you will

CI Methodology, Standards & Governance

• Own the global Operational Excellence methodology, ensuring a consistent, fit-for-purpose CI framework is deployed across all 63 Nouryon manufacturing sites.

• Define and govern the Lean/Six Sigma certification pathway from Yellow Belt through Master Black Belt, establishing quality standards for program content, assessment, and progression.
• Partner with regional OpEx Managers to translate global standards into site-level execution plans, maintaining strategic alignment while enabling regional adaptation.
• Establish and sustain a durable CI Governance model – defining the review cadence, accountability structure, and performance mechanisms that ensure CI maturity compounds over time across the Nouryon network.
• Own the enterprise systems of record for productivity tracking and performance reporting, including the ANT productivity platform and PowerBI reporting architecture, ensuring data integrity and leadership visibility across all sites.

ISC Learning & Development

• Lead the design and continuous improvement of the ISC Learning & Development program, spanning CI capability, technical skills, and leadership development for the ISC organization.
• Direct the L&D team to build and maintain a structured curriculum that supports onboarding, role progression, and organizational capability uplift.
• Connect L&D investment directly to VMC and FMC delivery targets, ensuring program outcomes are measurable and business-relevant.
• Own the design mandate for Digital Literacy and AI capability across the ISC organization – defining the people, process, and metrics framework required to build and sustain enterprise AI competency at scale. This includes establishing program objectives, identifying ownership, and proposing a deployment model aligned to Nouryon’s broader digital strategy.

End-to-End Process Management

• Own the ISC End-to-End process architecture, defining process standards, documentation requirements, and governance for core ISC value streams.
• Drive process modeling and SIPOC-level design across ISC, working through the Process Modeler and Global Process Owner to ensure clarity of accountability and performance standards.
• Identify and close process design gaps that create risk, inefficiency, or measurement inconsistency across the ISC organization.

Manufacturing Excellence

• Define the Manufacturing Excellence framework for Nouryon, including OEE, TPM, reliability, and asset performance standards applied across the manufacturing network.
• Direct the Manufacturing Excellence Manager to develop and deploy site-level improvement programs, closing the loop between plant performance data and structured intervention.
• Integrate manufacturing excellence priorities into the broader OpEx roadmap, ensuring alignment with Digital Manufacturing, Palantir-enabled analytics, and capital investment decisions.

People Leadership & COE Development

• Lead a geographically distributed team of nine direct reports
• Define team structure, role clarity, and succession priorities for the COE
• Build a high-performance COE culture grounded in Nouryon’s Leadership Capability Framework

This role requires approximately 15–25% global travel across the Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacific.

 Key Performance Indicators

The Global Director, Operational Excellence COE is measured against the same Breakthrough KPIs as the VP, Global Operational Excellence & Digital Manufacturing. This alignment is intentional – the COE’s organizational design, capability systems, and governance structures exist to enable these outcomes. Execution is driven through the regional OpEx Manager network; this role is accountable for building and sustaining the organization capable of delivering them.

• People Safety
• Process Safety
• FMC — Fixed Manufacturing Cost Productivity
• VMC — Variable Manufacturing Cost Productivity
• OEE — Overall Equipment Effectiveness
• OTIF — On-Time In-Full
• Quality Sigma Level
• CI Activation Rate

We believe you bring

• A Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Engineering, Operations, Business, or a related discipline; advanced degree preferred.
• A minimum of 15 years of progressive experience in Operational Excellence, Continuous Improvement, or manufacturing leadership roles in a global, multi-site environment.
• Certified Master Black Belt (MBB) or Black Belt in Lean/Six Sigma, with demonstrated capability to design, govern, and quality-assure a full belt certification program.
• Proven track record of leading change management initiatives in large, matrixed, multi-regional organizations – with the ability to align diverse stakeholders and shift organizational culture.
• Deep knowledge of Manufacturing Excellence frameworks including OEE, TPM, and reliability methodologies, with experience deploying these at scale across a manufacturing network.
• Demonstrated people leadership across multiple geographies and organizational grades, including experience developing high-performing teams in a distributed structure.

Great if you have

• Experience in specialty chemicals, process manufacturing, or a similarly regulated, capital-intensive industrial environment.
• Hands-on expertise in End-to-End process design and governance, including SIPOC-level architecture and process ownership models.
• Experience designing and leading corporate Learning & Development programs, including competency frameworks and structured curricula for technical disciplines.
• Prior experience building or structuring a Center of Excellence from the ground up, including team design, governance models, and stakeholder alignment.
• Working proficiency with PowerBI or equivalent reporting platforms for program performance tracking and executive communication.

We believe you are...

A systems thinker who sees the whole before diving into the parts. You lead through frameworks, not firefighting – you understand that durable operational excellence is built on governance, capability, and culture, not individual heroics. You bring intellectual rigor to every conversation and are comfortable challenging assumptions at any level of the organization, including in rooms where the answer is already assumed.

You are energized by building – building teams, building programs, building the conditions for others to succeed. You know how to hold standards without being rigid, and how to drive urgency without creating chaos. The right candidate is someone who finds genuine satisfaction in watching a global organization improve because of the systems they put in place – and who brings the patience, persistence, and precision that transformation at scale demands.

We offer you

This is a rare opportunity to architect and lead a newly consolidated global COE with a clear mandate from senior leadership, a defined team, and direct line of sight to enterprise value delivery. You will operate with significant autonomy, build the structure you believe is right, and leave a measurable legacy across a global manufacturing organization at an inflection point in its CI and digital transformation journey.

At Nouryon, we provide a great job and friendly coworkers, plus benefits in addition to salary.

Have we got your interest?

This is a permanent position on a full-time basis, reporting to VP, Global Operational Excellence & Digital Manufacturing, based in a Nouryon regional hub Amsterdam, Netherlands | Houston, TX, USA

Please apply via our online recruitment system. We will not accept applications via e-mail. Once it's with us we will review to see if we have a match between your skills and the role! For more information about our hiring process, visit: nouryon.com/careers/how-we-hire/  

We look forward to receiving your application!

We kindly ask our internal candidates to apply with your Nouryon email via Success Factors. 

About Nouryon

Explore careers and life at 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. If that describes you, we will gladly make way for your ambitions. 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. 

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Nouryon is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected under applicable federal, state, or local law.