A premier food & drink manufacturing business is seeking an accomplished Site Director to lead a high-performing production site within a dynamic category leadership team.

Role Overview

This senior operational leadership role carries full accountability for the day-to-day management and strategic delivery of site objectives, ensuring world-class standards in safety, quality, cost, and customer service.

You will lead a cross-functional senior team to deliver the site’s operational strategy, champion lean manufacturing excellence, and foster a culture of engagement, continuous improvement, and growth. As a credible and visible leader, you will inspire your teams to exceed performance targets while embedding a customer-focused mindset across all functions.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide inspirational leadership for all site operations, aligning teams to business strategy and budgetary goals.

• Own and drive the operational agenda, including manufacturing excellence, capacity, capability, and cost management.

• Lead the development and retention of talent, fostering a culture of growth, high performance, and engagement.

• Embed and champion robust health, safety, and environmental standards to ensure a safe, compliant, and positive working environment.

• Develop and execute contingency and business continuity plans to mitigate operational risks.

• Collaborate with cross-functional and category senior stakeholders to drive innovation, product quality, and customer satisfaction.

• Use data-driven decision making to analyze performance metrics and identify improvement opportunities.

• Lead the site’s journey towards manufacturing excellence and lean maturity with a hands-on, problem-solving approach.

Qualifications & Experience

• Proven senior operational leadership experience within a large-scale food & drink manufacturing environment.

• Demonstrated success delivering significant change programs with cultural and system transformations.

• Strong commercial acumen with a clear understanding of financial management and operational KPIs.

• Experienced in leading cross-functional teams and fostering collaboration across multiple disciplines.

• Deep knowledge and practical application of Lean Manufacturing principles.

• Resilient, decisive, and adaptable leadership style with the ability to manage complexity and ambiguity.

• Degree educated or equivalent preferred.

Core Competencies & Attributes

• Strong people leadership focused on engagement, development, and retention.

• Customer-centric mindset with a passion for quality and service excellence.

• Excellent communication, influencing, and stakeholder management skills.

• Proactive, initiative-driven, and able to operate autonomously.

• Calm under pressure with a problem-solving, solutions-focused approach.

• High integrity, visible leadership, and a genuine passion for the food & drink sector and its people.

Please get in touch for more information on this role or apply with your CV today.