Senior Director Operational Excellence Americas

Trivium Packaging; Youngstown (OH); On-site; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

Trivium Packaging seeks a Senior Director of Operational Excellence Americas to design and deploy change initiatives across plants in the Americas. This role leads change agent teams to embed new ways of working and ensure sustainable adoption of OPEX programs.

Location is Youngstown, with an on-site/onsite presence. You will drive the transformation roadmap, establish governance, build a capable OPEX team, and ensure alignment with operations leadership.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of operations leadership experience across manufacturing.
• Lean, Six Sigma and continuous improvement expertise.
• Experience leading large-scale, multi-site transformations.
• Strong business and financial acumen with quantified impact.
• Analytical/problem-solving capability combining data and systems thinking.
• Excellent leadership and influencing skills from shop floor to executive level.
• Able to operate in complex environments and drive accountability.

Responsibilities

• Architect and lead the transformation roadmap translating strategy into high‑value programs.
• Establish program governance and deployment with resources prioritized by value.
• Build a high-performing OPEX team with training, tools and methodologies.
• Lead and develop central change agents and foster on-site coaching.
• Develop plant managers' change leadership to sustain improvements.
• Create peer learning across plants and accelerate adoption.
• Track adoption, KPIs, and value realization per plant against targets.
• Escalate barriers early and report progress to COEO and SteerCo.
• Coordinate with HR on capability gaps and organizational readiness.

Skills

Lean Six Sigma

Leadership

Financial acumen

Analytical thinking

Education

Six Sigma Black Belt

Job description

Senior Director Operational Excellence Americas Job Location: Youngstown Contract Type: Permanent Remote/Hybrid/Onsite: On-site Req Id: 39786

The Role

The Senior Director Operational Excellence designs and deploys change initiatives for an assigned set of plants, leading change agent teams to embed new ways of working and ensure sustainable adoption of operational excellence programs.

Responsibilities

Change Initiative Design & Deployment

• Architect and lead the TBS transformation roadmap, translating operational strategy into prioritized, high-value programs and initiatives.
• Establish strong program governance and deployment, prioritizing resources based on business value and operational impact while ensuring consistent execution across the network.
• Build a high-performing OPEX team, ensuring they have the capabilities, training, tools and methodologies to effectively lead and deliver transformation.

Team Leadership & Coaching

• Lead and develop a team of central change agents, providing hands-on coaching and on-site support
• Build change leadership capability in plant managers and local CI managers so improvements sustain beyond central intervention
• Create a peer learning environment across plants, sharing best practices and accelerating adoption of proven approaches

Performance Tracking & Escalation

• Track initiative adoption, behavioral KPIs, and value realization per plant against enterprise targets
• Identify and resolve barriers to adoption early; escalate systemic issues to the Central Change Lead
• Report progress to the COEO and functional excellence SteerCo, linking change activities to P&L impact

Stakeholder Alignment & Cross-functional Collaboration

• Align with Operations Directors and plant leadership on initiative sequencing, resource allocation, and production constraints
• Partner with SC Excellence, Manufacturing Strategy, and Procurement excellence teams to ensure change programs reinforce functional standards
• Coordinate with HR on capability gaps, training needs, and organizational readiness for new ways of working

Experience and Competencies

• 10+ years of operations leadership experience, with a strong track record improving manufacturing performance across production, quality, engineering and maintenance.
• Deep expertise in Lean, Six Sigma and continuous improvement, ideally with Six Sigma Black Belt certification and experience leading large-scale, multi-site transformations.
• Transformation leadership: able to architect and execute major operational transformations, translating strategy into clear actions, governance and measurable results.
• Strong business and financial acumen, with the ability to quantify operational opportunities, prioritize initiatives and translate improvements into financial impact.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving capability, combining data, systems thinking and operational expertise to identify and shape transformational opportunities.
• Excellent leadership and influencing skills, able to engage effectively from the shop floor to executive level, and experienced in developing, coaching and facilitating teams.
• Comfortable operating in complex and ambiguous environments, collaborating with functional experts and bringing structure, pace and accountability to transformation.

Nice to have

• Top-tier consulting experience at Director / Associate partner level
• Exposure to emerging operations technologies such as AI, advanced analytics, digital twins, simulation, robotics or process mining.

Work Environment

Operates in a corporate, manufacturing, and plant environment, with regular interaction with plant leadership and operational teams.