Technical Operations Lead

About Us:

We are DS Smith, together with International Paper, we are a global leader in sustainable packaging solutions and other fibre-based products. We believe a better, more sustainable tomorrow is possible with the right people, who challenge and support one another to enact positive change. We employ more than 65,000 colleagues in North America and Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), who are experts in innovation, manufacturing, design, sales, sustainability, supply chain, and much more. Together with our customers, we make the world safer and more productive, one sustainable packaging solution at a time. Become part of a world-leading organisation and do your best work with us!

About the role:

The Technical and Operations Lead - Innovation sits within our Packaging Innovation division and is embedded within the Product Squad to provide Technical and Operations leadership and expertise, ensuring that all new Product and Service developments are founded on robust technical and operational insight, making them fit to be commercially scalable at pace across the business.

In this role, you will act as the functional lead in development of Products and Services, ensuring strong functional voice and discipline in the progression of developments through the Stage Gating process. You will work closely with the other functional Squads and local/regional market teams to ‘test thinking’ and develop novel responses to quality, cost and delivery challenges.  

Your remit will include but not limited to:

• Ensure that the products and services we develop, and the environment we source and manufacture them in adhere to our corporate commitment to Vision Zero, Circularity and Sustainability

• Be the ‘functional voice’ within the Product Development process, ensuring that we leverage our full functional expertise to deliver commercially successful solutions

• Actively participating within the Stage Gating decision making process, keeping business stakeholders informed and engaged

• Develop the Functional activity plans and deliverables necessary to deliver the successful progression through the Stage Gating process, in line with the agreed schedule

• Provide broad based technical and operational insight and expertise on the successful product and service design, test and industrial scale up – including technical manufacturability, manufacturing process design and control, supply chain design, operational process control, legal and regulatory standards, etc.

• Active involvement in the budget planning and setting process for Product and Service development, ensuring alignment across business and functional budgets.

About you  

• Broad based experience in Operational/Manufacturing/Supply Chain and demonstrated Product Development / Introduction experience

• Experience of Product and Service Design environments

• FMCG, Paper and/or Packaging industry experience is preferred but not mandatory

• Excellent communication and relationship building skills

• Comfortable with working with ambiguity and able to navigate a complex, global matrix environment

• Responsive, tenacious and driven self-starter

• Fluent English; any other European language will be advantageous.

Benefits

• Competitive salary

• Discretionary bonus

• 25 days holiday plus bank holidays

• Car Allowance

• Pension scheme, life assurance and income protection

• Employee Assistance Programme

• Employee Discounts

Location: Remote – UK or Belgium

Travel: c. 20-30% across Europe