Food Safety and Quality System Director - APMEA

About Kerry

Kerry is the world's leading taste and nutrition company for the food, beverage and pharmaceutical industries. Every day we partner with customers to create healthier, tastier and more sustainable products that are consumed by billions of people across the world. Our vision is to be our customers' most valued partner, creating a world of sustainable nutrition. A career with Kerry offers you an opportunity to shape the future of food while providing you opportunities to explore and grow in a truly global environment.

About the role

• Reporting to   : Vice President Food Safety & Quality of APMEA
• Travel             : Up to 50% across APMEA (Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa)

This role works with the global and APMEA FSQ Leadership Team and key Kerry internal stakeholders (including Supply Chain, R&D, Regulatory, Procurement, Category Technologist, Commercial, Supplier Quality and Site Operations Teams) to develop and govern Food Safety and Quality improvement programs (execution responsibility typically sits with the Subregional FSQ directors) that support the business within the region to ensure that products and services continuously achieve and exceed customers (and other external) expectations in order to develop profitable (and sustainable) customer partnerships.

The role is responsible for providing strong and visible thought leadership and driving continuous improvement (CI) across the 6 subregions in APMEA, ensuring a robust foundation of food safety and leveraging quality as a competitive advantage (aligned to Safety First, Quality Always), while managing a team as it's a people management role.

Key responsibilities

• Lead the development and governance of Food Safety and Quality Systems improvement programs across APMEA with a focus on customers, strategy, policies, food safety programs and risk
  mitigation, including but not limited to: 
  • Effective and fast knowledge sharing (best practice and event learnings) to accelerate performance improvement across APMEA; Sanitation; Lab (internal and external);
  • Sensory; TPMs; Quality Systems (EPM, Intelex, SAP, KerryTrack, etc);
  • FSQ Training Needs Analysis and delivery of engaging and effective FSQ training;
     
• Classified as General Business FSQ Procedures: SPC capability build cross-functionally (deployed in a customer-centric manner to leverage quality as a strategic advantage); FSQ digitalization
  governance.
• Be the conduit for APMEA to the global FSQ directors as relevant
• In case of events: ensure Food Safety risk assessments and verification are doneand make the final FG food safety release decision for product on hold in escalatable
  events, supported by site FSQ leads, Subregional FSQ leads and SMEs. Consult with VP as needed.
• The incumbent of this role will be tasked with standardising best practice way of working across multiple countries and plants in APMEA, all with different cultures and heritages.
• He/she will be required to create the momentum, pace and buy-in needed to make this happen.
• The role therefore has the following main facets:
  o Mainly strategy and governance
  o External customer focus
  o International reach
  o Leadership and people development (cross-functionally)
  o Transformation/Change and stakeholder management
  o Best in-class processes, systems and procedure

Qualifications and skills

• Mix of strategic and operational experience at a leadership level within best practice, global food/beverage organisations, ideally on a pan APMEA basis 
• Proven knowledge of food and beverage regulations and latest customer/consumer expectations
• Experience in numerous technical functional roles such as supply quality, operations, quality systems, regulatory, R&D, manufacturing, laboratory management, sustainability 
• Strong background in food chemistry, raw materials, sensory, microbiology, food packaging systems and food engineering 
• Track record of being able to identify and drive continuous improvement and change management initiatives to develop a customer focussed, best practice approach 
• Clear customer focus with specific evidence to suggest he/she builds strong relationships based on trust and inspires confidence in customers. Prior experience dealing with large FMCG customers is essential.
• Strong evidence to suggest he/she has managed talent for a global organisation and built winning teams

Competencies Required:

• Inspirational, experienced leader and strong role model/ambassador to the wider organisation
• Excellent critical thinking and decision-making skills. This includes strong analytical and problem-solving skills
• Excellent interpersonal communication, relationship management and exceptional influencing and stakeholder management skills to be able work across all levels within an organisation
• Highly resilient and adaptable to changing business requirements; have a ‘can do’ attitude.
• Thrives working in a fast-paced, global environment where accountability, quality, timeliness are key components 
• Strong collaboration-partnership skills
• A change agent. Energised by making a difference and comfortable dealing with ambiguity.
• International / Global outlook 
• Executive presence: demonstrates gravitas, credibility and wins trust
• Classified as General Business Results focus, service delivery mindset and pragmatic approach
• Commercial nous and natural focus on ROI, project and budget management and control
• Politically astute, assertive and robust