Senior Director Operational Continuous Improvement

Job Summary

The Senior Director of Continuous Improvement (CI) is responsible for building, leading, and sustaining a culture of operational excellence across all facilities. This role drives simplification, standardization, waste elimination, and data-driven decision-making, ensuring teams improve every day through disciplined execution, visible metrics, and cross-functional collaboration. The leader will champion the GRIT mindset—Growth through Relentless Improvement & Teamwork—while enabling teams to identify opportunities, remove barriers, and deliver consistent, measurable results.

Responsibilities and Tasks

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Leadership & Culture Building

• Serve as the enterprise champion for continuous improvement, fostering a unified, sustainable CI culture across all sites.
• Embed GRIT behaviors into daily operations, ensuring simplification, standardization, and operational excellence become integrated into how teams work.
• Partner with leaders across Production, Quality, Engineering, Supply Chain, and functional teams to drive cohesive improvement efforts.

Continuous Improvement Program Ownership

• Develop and deploy enterprise CI frameworks, including tiered daily management, visual performance boards, SQDCP metrics, and waste-elimination practices.
• Lead root-cause problem-solving, RCCA effectiveness, Pareto-based defect analysis, and workflow redesign to reduce downtime and non-value-added activities.
• Facilitate Kaizen events and process audits, and standardize documentation of GRIT initiatives, including the development of cost models for measured improvements.
• Monitor key CI indicators, including HPU, cycle time versus takt time, OTD trends, defect visibility, and manpower planning, and ensure corrective actions address root causes.
• Support cross-functional collaboration through Integrated Product Teams (IPTs) to rapidly address barriers such as material shortages and production bottlenecks.
• Mentor and empower site-level CI practitioners, GRIT Champions, and operational leaders to build problem-solving capabilities and promote collaboration. Teach the use of lean tools, the DMAIC method, Value Stream Mapping, and other CI methodologies.
• Promote the sharing of best practices across sites to accelerate improvement and unify operational standards.

Knowledge (Education, License, Certification, and Prior Experience)

Required

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, operations, business, or a related field.
• Certified Lean Six Sigma Green Belt.
• 12+ years of relevant experience, including 7+ years of formal management experience.
• Demonstrated experience leading complex CI initiatives across functions or sites.

Preferred

• Certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt.
• Experience in aerospace, defense, or regulated manufacturing environments.
• Experience with strategy deployment (Hoshin Kanri), daily management systems, or operating-system design.
• Experience leading enterprise-level CI maturity, governance, or operating-system structures.

Skills and Abilities

Skills & Abilities

• Executive-level written and verbal communication, facilitation, and presentation skills.
• Ability to professionally interact with all levels of the company, from executives and leaders to cross-functional teams and factory employees.
• Strong analytical and statistical data-analysis skills.
• Ability to influence, coach, and develop employees at all levels.
• Demonstrated ability to drive change and lead through resistance.
• Deep working knowledge of CI tools, including Kaizen, 5S, A3, VSM, Standard Work, Kanban, and DMAIC.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of experience in manufacturing, operations, or continuous-improvement leadership roles.
• Demonstrated success implementing lean principles, visual-management systems, and structured CI programs.
• Strong analytical approach supported by data interpretation, KPI management, and problem-solving methodologies.
• Proven ability to influence senior leaders and drive cross-functional collaboration.
• Experience developing high-performing teams and coaching both leaders and frontline employees.
• Excellent communication, facilitation, and change-management skills.

Travel/Physical Requirements

• Remote with 25–50% travel to Twenty-Six Defense sites as needed for CI deployment and coaching, depending on home location.

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