WE Soda
Global Director - S&OP and European Supply Operations
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About WE Soda
WE Soda is the world’s largest producer of natural soda ash, a critical raw material used in a wide range of industrial applications, including glass, detergents, and chemicals. Our company takes great pride in producing over 9.5 million tonnes of natural soda ash annually, an exceptional milestone that reinforces our leadership in the global market.
With our headquarters in the United Kingdom and production facilities in Türkiye and the United States, we operate across a broad international footprint. Our products are in high demand worldwide, and we currently export premium natural soda ash to more than 80 countries, reflecting our commitment to operational excellence and our ability to meet the diverse needs of a global customer base.
Role Purpose
The Global Head of S&OP & European Supply Operations is responsible for leading WE Soda’s global Sales & Operations Planning process, integrating Commercial, Manufacturing, Supply Chain and Finance into an aligned operating plan. The role also has direct responsibility for the end-to-end execution of European and UK customer supply operations, from order entry through final delivery, including customer service, inventory management, distribution hubs, inland terminals, warehouses and transportation. The position ensures alignment between global demand and supply while delivering reliable customer service, optimized inventory, efficient logistics execution and competitive cost-to-serve across the European and UK network.
Key Responsibilities:
Global S&OP – Key Responsibilities
- Lead the Global S&OP process, ensuring an integrated and aligned demand, production, inventory and capacity plan across Commercial, Manufacturing, Supply Chain and Finance.
- Drive forecast accuracy, demand-plan and production-plan adherence, identifying forecast bias, supply-demand gaps and capacity constraints early enough to enable corrective action.
- Optimize inventory and working capital, maintaining finished-goods inventory against agreed targets and safety-stock policies while ensuring appropriate capacity utilization and supply availability.
- Establish strong S&OP governance and execution discipline, ensuring timely decision-making, action closure and proactive resolution of constraints to minimize unplanned allocations and emergency supply events.
- A specific first 12-month mandate to repair and institutionalize the S&OP process.
- Ensure that decisions taken through Executive S&OP are translated into one agreed production, inventory, logistics and customer allocation plan and tracked through execution.
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Europe/UK Operations – Key Responsibilities
- Lead end-to-end Europe and UK customer supply execution, ensuring strong OTIF performance and minimizing customer supply interruptions across the distribution network.
- Optimize delivered logistics cost and working capital, improving cost/MT, inventory turns and inventory days while minimizing demurrage, detention and storage costs.
- Maximize hub, terminal, warehouse and transportation network utilization, balancing capacity, inventory availability, operational resilience and customer requirements.
- Ensure strong operational, WE Soda global HSE and service performance, proactively managing logistics risks, disruptions and claims while driving continuous improvement across the network.
- Help shape and deliver the Sustainability plans and goals for the supply chain, working closely with the Commercial Department.
- Implement comprehensive risk management initiatives, including contractual, operational, and field-level safeguards, as well as contingency planning to reinforce supply chain resilience.
- Develop and manage logistics service providers and strategic partners, ensuring appropriate capacity, service performance, operational standards and cost competitiveness across the Europe and UK network.
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Key Qualifications & Experience:
- 10–15+ years in S&OP, integrated planning, supply chain planning or operations leadership.
- Direct accountability for a mature S&OP/IBP process across multiple manufacturing sites and geographic markets.
- Experience in an asset-intensive commodity/process industry — soda ash preferred; chemicals, industrial minerals, mining, fertilizers, metals, pulp/paper or similar acceptable.
- Experience reconciling constrained production capacity against customer demand and determining allocation priorities.
- Strong understanding of forecast accuracy/bias, inventory policy, capacity planning, working capital, logistics constraints and scenario modelling.
- Experience presenting and driving decisions at executive S&OP.
- Strong background in managing multi-modal logistics networks and distribution (sea freight, rail, truck and containers).
- Bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering, Logistics, Supply Chain, or General Engineering.
- Professional fluency in English: fluency in other languages a plus
Preferred Attributes:
- Experience in fast-paced, growth-driven or owner-led environments
- Experience in establishing and managing supply chain control towers
- Ability to handle operational challenges while leading strategic initiatives
- Familiarity with both bulk and containerized cargo handling and railroad logistics
- ERP/TMS expertise (SAP, Oracle, or similar)
- High integrity, accountability, and resilience under pressure
- Strong stakeholder management and cross-functional leadership skills
Performance Metrics:
- OTIF Delivery Rate (On-Time, In-Full)
- Cost-to-Serve Reduction YoY
- Logistics Costs as % of Sales
- Asset Utilization
- Customer Satisfaction (NPS)
- Operational Risk Incident Rate
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