Vice President Supply Chain

Vice President, Supply Chain
Confidential | High-Growth Advanced Manufacturing
We are building a supply chain for a company that intends to move materially faster than its industry.
This is not a traditional defense supply chain role. We are not operating around multiyear development cycles, comfortable lead times or layers of process that have accumulated over decades. Our products are complex, the operating environment is demanding and the consequences of failure are real, but our pace needs to resemble consumer electronics, high-volume contract manufacturing or the fastest-moving parts of the electric vehicle industry.
We need a Vice President of Supply Chain who knows how to create speed without losing control.
The mandate is broad: build and lead the end-to-end supply chain capability required to support rapid product development, production ramp-up and increasing customer demand. You will take ownership of planning, sourcing, procurement, supplier development, material availability, inventory, logistics and supply chain risk.
This is a hands-on operating role. You will be expected to understand what is constraining production, which suppliers are at risk, where lead times can be compressed and what decisions need to be made today. You will work directly with engineering, manufacturing, quality, finance and executive leadership to keep programs moving and ensure that the supply chain enables growth rather than limiting it.
You will:
Build a scalable supply chain organization, operating model and supplier network for a rapidly growing advanced manufacturing business.
Translate demand, production plans and engineering requirements into a disciplined materials and capacity strategy.
Improve component availability, supplier responsiveness, inventory accuracy and delivery performance.
Identify and resolve shortages before they affect production.
Develop suppliers that can support aggressive schedules, changing requirements and significant volume growth.
Negotiate commercial terms while balancing cost, quality, resilience and speed.
Establish practical planning, procurement and supplier-management processes without creating unnecessary bureaucracy.
Introduce the systems, data and operating cadence needed to provide real-time visibility across the supply chain.
Work closely with engineering to improve design-for-manufacture, reduce unnecessary complexity and prevent avoidable supply constraints.
Build redundancy around critical components, constrained materials and single-source suppliers.
Recruit and develop a high-performing team across planning, procurement, sourcing, supplier management and logistics.
Remain personally involved in critical supplier negotiations, production constraints and escalations.
The strongest candidates are likely to have operated in one or more of the following environments:
Consumer electronics or complex electromechanical products produced at speed and scale.
Contract manufacturing, where customer expectations are high, margins are closely managed and delivery failures are immediately visible.
Electric vehicles, batteries, automotive technology or other manufacturing environments that have undergone aggressive production ramps.
Robotics, industrial automation, aerospace technology or another sector combining hardware complexity with rapid development cycles.
A high-growth manufacturer where the supply chain had to be built or fundamentally transformed while the business continued to operate.
You should have substantial experience leading complex supply chains and a record of delivering measurable improvements in lead time, material availability, supplier performance, working capital and production output. Experience scaling from prototype or low-rate production into meaningful volume will be particularly valuable.
We are looking for someone with urgency, commercial judgement and operational depth. Someone who can move comfortably between a supplier’s factory floor, an executive meeting and a detailed production review. Someone who uses data, challenges assumptions and does not accept an industry-standard lead time simply because it is considered normal.
You must be comfortable making decisions with incomplete information, holding suppliers and internal teams accountable, and changing course quickly when the facts require it. You should know the difference between useful process and process that merely creates the appearance of control.
Experience in defense is not required. Candidates whose careers have been built entirely around the traditional pace and operating model of large defense primes are unlikely to be the right fit unless they can demonstrate that they have successfully created a materially faster way of working.
This opportunity will suit an operator who wants to build, not inherit; who is motivated by difficult production problems; and who believes supply chain should be a competitive advantage rather than a support function.
The role is based in the Southeastern United States and requires a significant on-site presence.
Relocation support is available.
Expressions of interest will be handled confidentially.

Work arrangement
Yes