Head Operational Excellence

Rochester Italia srl; Town of Italy (NY); Hybrid; EUR 120,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Rochester Executive is seeking a Head of Operational Excellence to lead the Results Delivery Office and drive the operational excellence program. The role reports to the COO and balances pace of execution with change management.

The candidate should have 5-7 years in consulting with a focus on Operations and PMO, plus experience in regulated industries. Italian and English fluency is required, with the North East Italy location in mind.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree required; MBA would be a plus.
• 5-7 years of consulting experience with focus on operations and PMO in operational excellence programs.
• Experience in regulated industries is a strong plus.
• Excellent PMO skills to drive complex programs with playbook knowledge.
• Strong leadership and emotional intelligence; ability to influence without direct reporting lines.

Responsibilities

• Lead the Results Delivery Office (PMO) of the operational excellence program.
• Set up governance, regular action-oriented meetings, and rigorous tracking of action items.
• Develop and maintain the program masterplan with milestones and interdependencies.
• Coordinate knowledge sharing with group level program evolution and cross-workstream collaboration.
• Identify additional value creation opportunities within the transformation program.
• Handover ownership from external advisors and support governance forums documentation.

Skills

PMO leadership

Stakeholder management

Operational excellence

People leadership

Analytical mindset

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree

MBA would be a plus

Job description

They are a dynamic industrial player, facing a transformation cycle in the light of a fast growing journey. They operate in a market with significant potential and aim at accelerating the implementation of new initiatives, that include the onboarding of the resources to enable this ambition.

In this context, the Head of Operational Excellence is now needed to help shaping a best in class organization.

Position – The role:

Lead the Results Delivery Office (the PMO of the operational excellence program), directly reporting to the COO, ensuring the most appropriate pace of execution for the operational excellence program, balancing time to impact and change rhythm.

The Head of Operational Excellence (HOE), is a new strategic role designed to strengthen the function and ensure result delivery on Operational Excellence projects, through effective coordination and monitoring.

Position – Specific responsibilities:

• Results Delivery and Reporting: Design and issue regular reporting to track progress on operational excellence initiatives and current/expected impact in P&L/Cash flow, with simple and consistent rules for tracking value, that create transparency on progress and risks.
• PMO: Set up the operational excellence program governance, including standardized, regular action-oriented meetings to ensure progress, timely debottleneck and risks addressing, where action items are rigorously tracked, and meeting agendas tightly defined.
• Develop and maintains the operational excellence program masterplan, which includes individual initiatives’ plans/milestones, map of interdependencies and most appropriate sequencing, and prioritization.
• Program Knowledge Sharing: 1) Provide information at group level of program evolution, best practices, and processes. 2) Develop strong partnership with business owners (e.g., Head of Continuous Improvement) to ensure full clarity on program guidance, while promoting cross collaboration across multiple workstreams
• Development, set-up and monitoring of new opportunities: support in the identification of additional value creation opportunities, beyond what has already been identified by the PE and the Company, within the transformation program
• Advisors Handover Ownership: owner of advisor’s handover for the Ops Excellence streams
• Governance Support: support in creating and updating documentation for key governance forums (e.g., BTR, Board etc)

Position – Critical priorities: Success in 12 month is:

• Establish strong relationships with the whole Operations team
• Fully and independently driving Results Delivery Office, with operational excellence governance and reporting fully established
• Operational excellence program is on track to deliver expected impacts
• Full independence from external advisors (handover completed successfully and capabilities internalized)

Requirements and key skills:

• Education: Bachelor’s or Master’s degree. An MBA would represent a plus.
• Experience: 5-7 years’ experience in the Consulting space, with focus on Operations and consistent track in operational excellence program and PMO, i.e. has already played a similar role either on an operational excellence program or as Transformation PMO.

Alternatively, approx. 5-7 years’ dual “consulting & corporate” track, with experience in a similar corporate role, e.g. in Op Excellence.

In both cases, experience in regulated industries would be a strong plus

• Excellent PMO skills to drive complex programs with comprehensive knowledge of operational excellence playbook
• Strong people leadership/emotional intelligence:
• Natural ability to build trust-based relationships and to leverage them to ensure progress;
• Strong emerging people leadership traits: ability to influence without direct reporting levers, to read organisation criticalities and deliver impact with positive energy
  • Results-driven and hands-on approach
• Strong analytical skills, sharp on details, yet able to think high level
• Passion for execution and for making things happen; gets excitement from rolling his sleeves to drive impact

Languages:

Full proficiency in spoken and written Italian and English is a must.

Location:

North East of Italy, with agile approach to work.