General Manager Processing Operations

Stahmann Webster; City of Brisbane; On-site; AUD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Company vehicle

Senior Leadership Team influence

Professional development funding

Brisbane CBD location

Job summary

Stahmann Webster invites a General Manager – Processing Operations to lead four processing and packing facilities across Queensland and New South Wales from Brisbane. You will report to the Chief Operating Officer, sit on the Senior Leadership Team, and manage five direct reports and about 150 staff.

The role emphasizes harmonising practices across sites, driving efficiency, and ensuring safety and quality. Regular travel across states is required.

Qualifications

• Experience leading operations across multiple manufacturing sites.
• A track record of improving operational performance.
• Ability to influence senior stakeholders and shape strategy.

Responsibilities

• Oversee processing and packing operations at Bundaberg (2 sites), Toowoomba and Leeton.
• Lead a 150-person operational team with five direct reports.
• Drive safety, food safety and quality outcomes across all facilities.
• Provide input on acquisitions, expansions and due diligence.

Skills

Multi-site leadership

Commercial ownership

Change management

Leadership presence

Education

Engineering / Food science degree

Job description

Australia grows some of the best nuts and fruit in the world. Getting them out of the orchard, through a plant and onto a shelf — at scale, at quality, at the right cost — is the critical step that delivers value from the orchard to consumers.

That’s the opportunity you’d own.

Stahmann Webster is one of Australia’s leading and most diverse horticultural businesses. We grow, process and pack walnuts, almonds, pecans, macadamias, avocados and mangoes, and we operate apiaries across multiple regions.

We’ve created a new role — General Manager – Processing Operations — to lead our four processing and packing facilities across Queensland and New South Wales. You’ll report to the Chief Operating Officer, sit on the Senior Leadership Team, and lead a team of five direct reports and approximately 150 people in total.

Why this role, and why now

This is a newly created position, and it exists because the business has grown.

Our processing footprint has grown with it. We now run two facilities in Bundaberg, one in Toowoomba and one in Leeton — four sites, two states, built up at different times and in different ways. They need to be led as one operation rather than four, by someone with the authority to make that happen.

It’s also why we’re being deliberate about who we appoint. A new role at this level is a rare thing to be handed. Whoever takes it will define what it becomes.

What you’ll own

• Processing and packing operations across four sites — Bundaberg (x2), Toowoomba and Leeton
• Five direct reports, and a total operational team of 150
• Safety, food safety and quality outcomes across every processing facility
• Operational input into acquisitions, expansion projects and due diligence as we continue to grow
• A voice on the Senior Leadership Team, with real influence over where the business goes next

What we’d want you to focus on first

• Lead the review and harmonisation of operational disciplines across acquired manufacturing sites, establishing best-in-class manufacturing practices and aligning all sites to a consistent, high-performing standard.
• Partner with operational leaders to identify, design, construct and commission value-adding processing equipment that improves efficiency, throughput, quality and scalability.
• Provide clear direction to manufacturing support functions, ensuring aligned standards, consistent ways of working and effective operational support across the network.

What we’re looking for

You’ll need:

• Multi-site operational leadership in food processing, manufacturing or agribusiness
• Real commercial ownership — budgets you built and answered for, not budgets you were handed
• A track record of lifting operational performance somewhere it genuinely wasn’t working
• The credibility to hold your own in a leadership team, and to influence well beyond your own function

Advantageous, but not essential:

• experience with seasonal or perishable raw material;
• bringing sites onto a common standard;
• tertiary qualifications in engineering, food technology or science.

Because our sites span two states, the role involves regular travel.

Working with seasonal produce

Worth being upfront about what makes this job interesting. Most of our raw material arrives seasonally, perishable, and largely when it decides to. Building a processing network that absorbs that is a materially harder problem than running a continuous line — and if it’s the kind of problem you enjoy, this is a good one.

What we offer

• An attractive salary package, incentive program and company vehicle
• A seat on the Senior Leadership Team — real influence over strategy, not just a title
• The scope to shape a role that has never existed before
• Brisbane CBD location
• Diversified across six crops plus apiaries, which makes the business unusually resilient to any single season
• Professional development funding, including leadership, safety and industry training
• Paid parental leave supporting both primary and secondary carers
• Wellness and employee support programs, and The People’s Pantry

How we work

Five values, and we use them: growth mindset, empowered, resilient, connected and humble. Our commitment to safety, our people and our communities underpins all of it.