Vice President of Quality and Operational Excellence

Vice President of Quality and Operational Excellence
Position Summary
The Vice President of Quality and Operational Excellence is a senior enterprise executive responsible for integrating quality management, operational excellence, continuous improvement, process optimization, and performance management across the organization.
The role ensures that business operations consistently achieve high standards of quality, efficiency, reliability, compliance, productivity, and customer satisfaction. The VP establishes enterprise quality systems while driving Lean, Six Sigma, process transformation, and data-driven performance improvement.
This position is particularly relevant for manufacturing, healthcare, life sciences, technology, engineering, logistics, professional services, and other complex operating environments.
Key Responsibilities
1. Quality & Operational Excellence Strategy
Develop and execute the enterprise-wide Quality and Operational Excellence strategy.
Align quality and continuous-improvement priorities with corporate growth and financial objectives.
Establish enterprise standards for quality, efficiency, reliability, and operational performance.
Develop multi-year improvement roadmaps and transformation priorities.
2. Quality Management System
Oversee the development and continuous improvement of the enterprise Quality Management System (QMS).
Establish quality policies, procedures, standards, controls, and governance frameworks.
Ensure consistent quality practices across business units, facilities, regions, and suppliers.
Drive a proactive approach to defect prevention and quality risk management.
3. Operational Excellence
Lead enterprise programs designed to improve productivity, efficiency, cost, cycle time, and process reliability.
Identify operational bottlenecks, waste, duplication, and process variation.
Apply Lean, Six Sigma, Kaizen, value-stream mapping, and process-reengineering methodologies.
Establish standardized operating practices and continuous-improvement systems.
4. Process Optimization
Analyze end-to-end business processes and identify opportunities for simplification and automation.
Redesign inefficient workflows and operating procedures.
Establish process ownership, performance standards, and accountability.
Ensure process improvements generate sustainable operational benefits.
5. Performance Management
Establish enterprise operational and quality KPIs.
Monitor metrics such as:
Defect and error rates
First-pass yield
Customer complaints
Cycle time
Productivity
Cost of quality
On-time delivery
Process efficiency
Operational downtime
Continuous-improvement savings
Develop executive dashboards and performance-review mechanisms.
6. Quality Risk & Compliance
Establish frameworks for identifying, assessing, and mitigating quality and operational risks.
Partner with Legal, Compliance, Risk, Regulatory, and Internal Audit functions.
Prepare the organization for internal and external audits.
Ensure quality processes remain aligned with applicable regulatory and industry requirements.
7. Customer Quality
Translate customer requirements into measurable quality standards.
Reduce customer complaints, defects, returns, service failures, and rework.
Partner with Customer Experience, Sales, Product, and Operations teams to address systemic customer-quality issues.
Establish Voice-of-Customer mechanisms linked to continuous improvement.
8. Supplier & Partner Quality
Establish enterprise supplier-quality standards and performance requirements.
Partner with Procurement and Supply Chain to improve supplier reliability and quality.
Monitor supplier defects, corrective actions, audits, and performance trends.
Develop strategic supplier-improvement programs.
9. Digital Quality & Automation
Modernize quality and operational processes through AI, automation, analytics, and digital platforms.
Implement predictive quality and operational-performance models.
Automate inspection, reporting, workflow, root-cause analysis, and corrective-action processes where appropriate.
Improve visibility into real-time operational and quality performance.
10. Root Cause & Corrective Action
Establish enterprise methodologies for root-cause analysis and corrective/preventive action.
Ensure recurring quality and operational problems are addressed at the systemic level.
Monitor corrective-action effectiveness and closure.
Promote prevention rather than reactive problem resolution.
11. Cost of Quality & Value Creation
Quantify the financial impact of quality and operational-performance initiatives.
Reduce scrap, rework, warranty costs, defects, downtime, and operational waste.
Partner with Finance to validate improvement savings and financial benefits.
Build business cases for major quality and operational investments.
12. Transformation & Change Management
Lead large-scale quality and operational transformation programs.
Establish enterprise change-management strategies for new processes, systems, and operating models.
Develop internal capability through training, certification, and improvement academies.
Scale successful improvement initiatives across the organization.
13. Executive Leadership
Serve as a strategic advisor to the CEO, COO, CQO, and executive leadership team.
Present operational-performance trends, quality risks, improvement opportunities, and financial impact to senior leadership.
Build a global organization of quality, Lean, Six Sigma, process excellence, and operational-improvement professionals.
Establish a culture of quality ownership, operational discipline, continuous improvement, and accountability.
Qualifications
15–20+ years of experience in quality, operations, continuous improvement, manufacturing, engineering, supply chain, healthcare, technology, or related disciplines.
8–10+ years of senior leadership experience.
Demonstrated success leading enterprise quality and operational-excellence programs.
Strong knowledge of Lean, Six Sigma, Kaizen, process engineering, quality systems, and performance management.
Experience managing large-scale transformation and continuous-improvement portfolios.
Strong financial understanding of cost reduction, productivity, ROI, and value creation.
Experience with AI, automation, advanced analytics, and digital quality systems preferred.
Bachelor's degree required; MBA, engineering, quality, operations, or related advanced degree preferred.
Lean Six Sigma Black Belt/Master Black Belt or equivalent certification highly desirable.
Core Competencies
Quality Management
Operational Excellence
Continuous Improvement
Lean Six Sigma
Process Optimization
Quality Systems
Quality Risk Management
Root-Cause Analysis
Performance Management
Digital Quality
AI & Automation
Cost of Quality
Supplier Quality
Customer Quality
Change Management
Enterprise Transformation
Executive Leadership

Work arrangement
No