Vice President of Engineering

Lean Six Search | Supply Chain Recruitment; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 150,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

Lean Six Search | Supply Chain Recruitment is seeking a Regional Head of Engineering for North America. This pivotal role demands a leader with over 15 years of experience, responsible for deploying engineering strategies and leading large-scale capital projects across multiple sites. The candidate will improve operational efficiencies and implement digital solutions. This opportunity is not just about maintenance; it's about making fundamental improvements across engineering and operations in a complex environment.

Qualifications

• 15+ years of experience in engineering leadership.
• Proven ability to deliver capital projects from concept to execution.
• Experience in building effective teams in a complex environment.

Responsibilities

• Define and deploy engineering strategy across the region.
• Shape how capital is deployed from concept to commissioning.
• Work with operations to enhance throughput and reliability.
• Navigate and simplify complex organizational structures.
• Implement digital capabilities and automation.

Skills

Leading engineering in complex, multi-site environments

Delivering large-scale capital projects

Translating technical decisions into business outcomes

Building and leading high-performing teams

Navigating matrixed organizations

Job description

Regional Head of Engineering – North America

Confidential Search

There are roles that maintain systems. And there are roles that rebuild them. This is the latter.

We’re partnering with a global operator in the middle of a critical inflection point. The business is established, scaled, and complex. But now it needs to evolve. Faster decisions. Smarter capital. Sharper execution. Less friction between strategy and reality.

They’re looking for someone who can step into that gap and close it.

The Mandate

This role sits at the intersection of engineering, operations, and long-term value creation. You won’t just oversee projects. You’ll define how they get done. You’ll take a fragmented landscape of assets, teams, and priorities and bring structure to it. You’ll align regional execution with global ambition. You’ll build the systems, standards, and teams that ensure every dollar of capital delivers a return.

And you’ll do it while balancing two realities:

• Running a high-performing regional engineering function
• Acting as the technical backbone for a key business platform

It’s not theoretical. It’s operational. It’s messy. It’s high stakes.

What Success Looks Like

Success in this role is not measured in activity. It’s measured in outcomes.

• Capital projects that land on time, on budget, and actually deliver value
• A maintenance and reliability culture that prevents problems instead of reacting to them
• Engineering standards that scale across sites without slowing them down
• Digital and AI capabilities that move from buzzwords to real tools on the ground
• A team that can operate without you, because you built it that way

You become the person the regional leadership team trusts when things are unclear, high-risk, or behind schedule.

Where You’ll Focus

1. Build the Engine

Define and deploy the engineering strategy across the region. Set the standards. Create consistency. Drive accountability. Make execution predictable.

2. Own the Capital Story

From concept to commissioning, you’ll shape how capital is deployed. Prioritization, business cases, vendor partnerships, governance. If it moves the network forward, you’re involved.

3. Drive Operational Reality

Engineering doesn’t live in a vacuum. You’ll work side by side with operations to improve throughput, reliability, and cost. This is where strategy meets the floor.

4. Lead Through Complexity

Multiple sites. Different priorities. A matrixed organization. You’ll navigate it, simplify it, and still deliver.

5. Build What’s Next

Digital, automation, AI. Not as a concept, but as a capability. You’ll decide where it matters and make it real.

What You Bring

• 15+ years leading engineering in complex, multi-site environments
• A track record of delivering large-scale capital projects from idea to execution
• The ability to translate technical decisions into business outcomes
• Experience building and leading high-performing teams in a matrixed environment
• Strong instincts around where to invest, where to push, and where to simplify

You’ve seen what good looks like. And you’ve probably seen what broken looks like too.

Why This Role

Because this isn’t a maintenance job.

It’s a chance to step into a system that needs to be sharpened and leave it fundamentally better than you found it.

The kind of role where, two years in, you can point to tangible change.

Across assets. Across teams. Across performance.