Protect safety, quality and compliance

• Champion a zero-harm culture and maintain strong standards across safety, environment, food safety, quality, hygiene and GMP.
• Ensure effective investigation, deviation closure, corrective action and audit readiness, with learning embedded into everyday work.
• Maintain robust operational risk control across production, warehousing and distribution.

Drive continuous improvement and transformation

• Own the Autonomous Maintenance pillar within the Lipton Management System and embed it into daily operational delivery.
• Use data, shop-floor insight and structured problem solving to remove losses and improve reliability, productivity, service, waste and cost.
• Represent Operations in NPD, capital, digital and transformation projects, ensuring operational requirements, resources and risks are understood early.
• Ensure new investments and ways of working are successfully commissioned, handed over, adopted and sustained.

Work across the site

• Act as the senior Operations voice in site leadership and cross-functional forums.
• Build strong partnerships with Engineering, Quality, Safety, Planning, P&O, Finance and Manufacturing Excellence.
• Create particularly close alignment between Operations and Engineering to improve equipment performance and factory reliability.
• Keep production, materials, maintenance, labour and dispatch plans aligned with customer requirements.

What success looks like

• A safer workplace with strong environmental and operational risk control.
• Right-first-time quality, excellent hygiene and GMP standards, and consistent audit readiness.
• Reliable production, inventory and dispatch performance that supports customer service and OTIF.
• Delivery of agreed financial plans through stronger OEE, labour efficiency, productivity, waste reduction and cost control.
• A confident leadership team, engaged employees and stronger capability and succession across Operations.
• Sustained improvement through Autonomous Maintenance, disciplined daily management, Kaizen and loss elimination.
• Smooth integration of innovation, capital investment, digital systems and other transformation projects.

What we are looking for:

• Proven senior operational leadership experience in FMCG, food manufacturing or another high-volume, regulated environment.
• Experience leading Manufacturing together with Warehouse and Distribution, including leadership through managers and responsibility for a sizeable workforce.
• A strong track record across safety, quality, service, cost, people, productivity and continuous improvement.
• Experience owning an operational budget, P&L or cost-improvement plan and partnering closely with Finance and Planning.
• Practical knowledge of Lean, TPM, WCM, LMS or comparable daily management systems, including Autonomous Maintenance.
• Strong people leadership, including engagement, capability building, workforce planning, succession and fair performance management.
• Experience leading change in a unionised environment.
• Experience integrating NPD, capital investment, digital manufacturing or operational technology into day-to-day operations.
• The ability to use data and balanced judgement to make decisions, raise risks early and turn plans into sustained results.
• A degree or equivalent experience in Engineering, Manufacturing, Operations, Supply Chain or a related discipline. Relevant Lean, safety, food safety or leadership qualifications are an advantage.

What’s in it for you:

This role offers real breadth, visibility and ownership. You will shape how a major Lipton factory operates, influence site-wide decisions and lead an end-to-end function that directly connects production with our customers. You will work in a business where leaders are expected to be close to the operation, improve what matters and create the conditions for people to succeed.

If you enjoy leading through others, making practical improvements and taking accountability for the full operational picture, we would like to hear from you.

What to expect from us:

We know that the whole recruitment process can be stressful, so we promise to make it as straightforward as possible. Our process is usually 2-3 stages (depending on the seniority of the role) and we are aiming to review every CV within 2 weeks.

We are an organization committed to equity, inclusion and diversity to drive our business results and create a better future, every day, for our employees, global consumers, partners, and communities. We believe a diverse workforce allows us to match our growth ambitions and drive inclusion across the business. We are interested in every individual bringing their whole self to work and this includes you!