Director, Distribution & Logistics - US / Canada
What You Will Do
The Director, Distribution & Logistics is responsible for leading a multi-site domestic distribution and logistics network, ensuring safe, reliable, cost-effective movement and delivery of products to customers and internal operations.
This leader has overall accountability for the performance of multiple distribution centers and warehouse operations, domestic transportation, inventory accuracy, reverse logistics, productivity, and customer delivery performance. The Director will establish and execute the operating strategy for the domestic distribution network while building consistent operating standards, management systems, and continuous improvement capabilities across all locations.
The position requires a highly visible, hands-on leader who can operate strategically while driving disciplined execution at the site level. The successful candidate will develop strong site leadership teams, establish accountability through meaningful KPIs, optimize the distribution network, and partner across Supply Chain, Manufacturing, Planning, Procurement, Sales, Customer Service, Finance, IT, and Product Business Units.
The Director will serve as the senior escalation point for domestic distribution and logistics performance and will be accountable for delivering improvements in safety, customer service, on-time delivery, cost, productivity, inventory accuracy, quality, and working capital.
How You Will Do It
Multi-Site Distribution Leadership
- Provide direct leadership and operational oversight for a multi-site domestic distribution and warehouse network.
- Establish a consistent operating model, management cadence, performance standards, and accountability across all distribution locations.
- Lead and develop Distribution Center and Logistics leaders, building a strong succession pipeline and high-performance culture.
- Ensure site operations achieve established targets for safety, quality, service, productivity, inventory, and cost.
- Balance enterprise-wide standardization with the specific operational needs of individual sites and businesses.
- Serve as the primary escalation point for significant distribution, transportation, capacity, inventory, and customer-service issues.
Customer Delivery & Service
- Own distribution execution supporting customer-requested delivery and overall service performance.
- Drive improvements in On-Time Delivery, order cycle time, shipment reliability, fill rate, and perfect-order performance.
- Partner with Planning, Manufacturing, Customer Service, and Commercial teams to identify and resolve systemic service issues.
- Establish effective root-cause and corrective-action processes for missed shipments, warehouse constraints, transportation failures, and recurring customer issues.
Domestic Transportation
- Provide leadership for domestic inbound, outbound, intercompany, and customer transportation.
- Optimize transportation modes, routing, consolidation, carrier utilization, and shipment planning.
- Partner with Procurement to establish carrier strategies, service expectations, contracts, and performance management processes.
- Manage transportation performance through metrics such as cost per shipment, cost per pound, freight as a percentage of sales, tender acceptance, claims, and on-time pickup/delivery.
- Drive reduction of premium freight and other avoidable logistics costs.
Network Strategy & Optimization
- Develop and execute the long-term strategy for the domestic distribution network.
- Evaluate warehouse footprint, capacity, customer proximity, transportation flows, service requirements, and total delivered cost.
- Develop business cases supporting facility investments, automation, consolidation, expansion, outsourcing, or network redesign.
- Lead distribution network optimization initiatives with minimal disruption to customers.
- Determine appropriate use of internal operations versus third-party logistics providers (3PLs).
Inventory & Warehouse Management
- Drive strong inventory control disciplines throughout the distribution network.
- Improve inventory accuracy, cycle count effectiveness, dock-to-stock time, order picking accuracy, space utilization, and inventory velocity.
- Partner with Supply Planning and Inventory Management teams to improve product positioning throughout the distribution network.
- Establish effective controls for excess, obsolete, damaged, quarantined, and returned inventory.
- Ensure appropriate processes for reverse logistics and returns.
Operational Excellence
- Build a continuous improvement culture across the distribution network using Lean, Daily Management, Standard Work, Visual Management, Kaizen, problem solving, and value-stream improvement.
- Establish standardized processes and operating procedures across sites where practical.
- Use data and operational analytics to identify productivity, service, capacity, and cost opportunities.
- Drive warehouse productivity through labor planning, process redesign, slotting