VP, Engineering

Position Summary

The Vice President of Engineering provides enterprise leadership for engineering strategy, capital investment, automation, infrastructure, manufacturing technology, and technical capability across the manufacturing network. This executive is accountable for translating business priorities into safe, reliable, scalable, and financially sound solutions that strengthen growth, productivity, innovation, sustainability, quality, and operational performance.

The VP of Engineering leads through partnership and service. This leader brings together Manufacturing, Operations, Supply Chain, R&D, Quality, Finance, Procurement, EH&S, Human Resources, Commercial, and external experts to define needs, evaluate alternatives, and deliver the best enterprise outcome. The role creates clarity, removes barriers, develops people, and enables teams closest to the work to contribute meaningfully to solution design and execution.

The role oversees an annual capital portfolio exceeding $150 million and ensures that the strongest available internal and external expertise is applied to major capital programs, network investments, technology modernization, and complex operational challenges. Success requires disciplined governance, shared ownership, rigorous technical review, and solutions that are practical to operate, maintain, and sustain.

Key Responsibilities

Engineering Strategy, Servant Leadership & Capability

•Develop and execute a multi-year enterprise engineering strategy aligned with business growth, network needs, productivity, sustainability, innovation, and operational excellence priorities.

•Lead with a servant leadership mindset by listening actively, creating clarity, removing organizational and technical barriers, and enabling teams to perform at their best.

•Build a high-performing, inclusive engineering organization that values humility, accountability, curiosity, collaboration, and service to manufacturing and the broader enterprise.

•Develop engineering talent through coaching, stretch assignments, succession planning, communities of practice, and purposeful exposure to enterprise priorities.

•Establish clear engineering standards, governance, project management disciplines, and decision rights while empowering capable teams to act with appropriate speed and ownership.

•Create an environment where technical debate is welcomed, lessons are shared, and the best idea is advanced regardless of its source.

Cross-Functional Solution Development

•Partner with Manufacturing, Operations, Supply Chain, R&D, Quality, Finance, Procurement, EH&S, HR, Commercial, and other stakeholders from problem definition through design, execution, commissioning, and benefits realization.

•Ensure business, operational, technical, safety, quality, financial, workforce, and customer perspectives are integrated into major decisions and solution designs.

•Build shared ownership by engaging plant teams, operators, maintenance, technical specialists, and functional leaders early and throughout the project lifecycle.

•Facilitate alignment across stakeholders, surface tradeoffs transparently, and resolve issues in the best interest of the enterprise rather than a single function.

•Partner with innovation and commercial teams to ensure new products, processes, and technologies are designed for manufacturability, scalability, reliability, and sustainable execution.

•Use influence, trust, and fact-based recommendations to align senior leaders around complex enterprise decisions.

Technical Excellence & Expertise Networks

•Establish a deliberate approach for identifying, convening, and leveraging the best available internal and external expertise for each opportunity or challenge.

•Create strong technical networks and communities of practice across processing, packaging, utilities, facilities, automation, controls, reliability, digital manufacturing, and project execution.

•Ensure major solutions receive rigorous multidisciplinary technical review, appropriate challenge, and validation before investment and implementation.

•Engage subject matter experts, manufacturing teams, strategic suppliers, consultants, and industry partners based on the needs and risks of the work.

•Promote standardization and reuse of proven designs while allowing thoughtful adaptation to site, product, process, and customer requirements.

•Capture and share technical knowledge, project learnings, benchmarks, and standards so expertise is scalable across the network and not concentrated in individuals or locations.

•Benchmark external practices and emerging technologies to maintain best-in-class technical capability and avoid insular decision-making.

Capital Portfolio Management & Project Delivery

•Lead and govern an annual capital investment portfolio of $150M+ in partnership with business, finance, manufacturing, supply chain, and functional leaders.

•Develop long-range capital plans that support capacity, network optimization, automation, infrastructure renewal, asset reliability, compliance, growth, and cost competitiveness.

•Prioritize investments using transparent criteria that consider strategic value, operational need, technical risk, financial return, resource capacity, and enterprise interdependencies.

•Ensure project teams apply fit-for-purpose governance, front-end planning, risk management, technical assurance, change control, and benefits tracking.

•Create shared accountability for projects to be delivered safely, on time, within budget, and with the intended operational and financial outcomes.

•Ensure solutions are developed with the people who will operate and maintain them, with clear plans for training, commissioning, startup, handoff, and sustained performance.

Manufacturing & Operational Excellence

•Partner with manufacturing and plant leadership to improve safety, asset utilization, throughput, reliability, quality, yield, labor effectiveness, and cost performance.

•Apply Lean, TPM, Six Sigma, reliability-centered maintenance, and other relevant methodologies in ways that build local capability and solve the underlying business need.

•Champion practical digital manufacturing, automation, controls, data, and smart factory solutions that strengthen decision-making and workforce effectiveness.

•Provide responsive technical support for complex operating challenges while building the capability of teams to diagnose, solve, and prevent recurrence.

•Balance near-term operational support with long-term asset, technology, and capability strategies.

Safety, Quality, Compliance & Sustainability

•Embed worker safety, food safety, quality, environmental stewardship, cybersecurity, and regulatory compliance into the earliest stages of engineering decisions and designs.

•Ensure engineering standards and solutions meet applicable corporate, FDA, OSHA, environmental, and industry requirements.

•Partner with EH&S, Quality, Operations, and technical experts to identify risk, apply appropriate controls, and verify that solutions perform as intended.

•Advance sustainability priorities, including energy efficiency, waste reduction, water conservation, emissions reduction, and responsible use of resources.

Innovation & Technology Advancement

•Evaluate emerging technologies and industry practices through structured collaboration with

R&D, Operations, IT, Supply Chain, Procurement, suppliers, and technical partners.

•Lead disciplined pilots and scale-up efforts that test technical feasibility, operational value, workforce impact, and economic return before broader deployment.

•Enable innovative processing, packaging, automation, digital, and infrastructure solutions that improve growth, resilience, productivity, quality, and cost competitiveness.

•Ensure technology decisions are interoperable, supportable, secure, and aligned with enterprise architecture and long-term manufacturing strategy.

Qualifications

Required

•Bachelor's degree in Engineering, including Mechanical, Chemical, Electrical, Industrial, or a related discipline.

•Minimum 15 years of progressive engineering leadership experience within food, beverage, consumer packaged goods, or a related manufacturing industry.

•Minimum 10 years leading large, multi-site engineering organizations or complex enterprise technical networks.

•Demonstrated accountability for an annual capital portfolio exceeding $150 million.

•Proven success delivering large-scale capital programs, automation initiatives, infrastructure projects, and manufacturing transformations through cross-functional teams.

•Demonstrated ability to mobilize diverse expertise, make sound technical decisions, and convert complex business needs into sustainable solutions.

•Experience developing engineering talent, building organizational capability, and leading through influence across a geographically dispersed network.

Preferred

•Master's degree in Engineering, Business Administration, or a related field.

•Professional Engineer (PE) certification.

•Lean, TPM, Six Sigma, project management, or reliability certification.

Critical Leadership Competencies

•Servant Leadership and Team Enablement

•Cross-Functional Collaboration and Enterprise Partnership

•Technical Stewardship and Expert Network Leadership

•Strategic and Enterprise Thinking

•Capital Portfolio and Financial Acumen

•Manufacturing and Operational Excellence

•Influence, Alignment, and Stakeholder Management

•Talent Development and Succession Planning

•Change Leadership and Organizational Transformation

•Innovation, Curiosity, and External Orientation

•Judgment, Accountability, and Risk Management

•Learning Agility and Knowledge Sharing

Success Profile

The ideal candidate is a collaborative executive who combines deep technical credibility with strong business judgment and a genuine commitment to serving teams and the enterprise. This leader does not assume that the engineering function alone has the answer. Instead, they ask the right questions, engage the people closest to the work, connect the organization to the strongest available expertise, and create the conditions for teams to develop and execute superior solutions.

They are recognized for building trust across functions, developing talent, raising technical standards, and delivering complex programs through shared ownership and disciplined execution. They balance enterprise consistency with local insight, challenge assumptions constructively, and ensure decisions reflect safety, quality, operational, financial, workforce, and customer needs. They translate long-term strategy into practical action while strengthening capability across a large, geographically dispersed manufacturing network.

Key Experience Requirements

•Led engineering for a multi-site food, beverage, consumer packaged goods, or comparable manufacturing network.

•Managed annual capital investments of $150M+ with disciplined governance and demonstrated business outcomes.

•Directed major automation, digital manufacturing, processing, packaging, utilities, facilities, or infrastructure programs.

•Built effective partnerships across Manufacturing, Operations, R&D, Supply Chain, Finance, Procurement, Quality, EH&S, HR, IT, and Commercial functions.

•Established and leveraged internal and external expert networks to improve technical decisions and project outcomes.

•Demonstrated servant leadership through coaching, barrier removal, talent development, and empowerment of teams.

•Led organizational transformation, capability building, standardization, and culture change across a complex enterprise.