Dir, Corporate Food Safety & Quality

High Liner Foods•Portsmouth, NH

4d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Director, Corporate Food Safety & Quality is accountable for enterprise-wide food safety, quality, sanitation and audit readiness across High Liner Foods. This role establishes the standards, governance, routines, and expectations required to consistently meet regulatory, customer, GFSI, and internal requirements. As a functional leader, the Director must navigate the organization effectively, influence cross-functional partners, and align corporate and plant teams around clear priorities, measurable outcomes, and disciplined execution. This person will be a quality champion and active agent of food safety and quality cultural change, advocating for the protection of High Liner Foods, our customers, and our consumers.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Food Science, Microbiology, Biology, Chemistry, Engineering, or a related technical field required
10+ years of progressive food safety, quality, sanitation, or regulatory leadership experience in food manufacturing
Demonstrated expertise with HACCP/food safety plans, preventive controls/PCQI requirements, GFSI certification programs, GMPs, sanitation, environmental monitoring, allergen control, food defense, food fraud, CAPA, internal audits, regulatory inspections, and customer audits.
Strong working knowledge of applicable FDA, USDA, CFIA, FSMA, customer, and regulatory requirements.
Proven ability to influence senior leaders, align cross-functional stakeholders, resolve conflict, and drive execution in a matrixed organization.
Strong analytical, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills with the ability to translate data into priorities, action plans, and measurable results.
Excellent communication skills with the ability to clearly convey risk, expectations, decisions, and priorities at all levels of the organization.
Highly organized, proactive, resilient, with a practical approach to execution and a history of successfully delivering and improving results in dynamic manufacturing environments.

Nice To Haves

advanced degree preferred
multi-site experience strongly preferred

Responsibilities

Leads the enterprise food safety, quality, and sanitation strategy, establishing standards, priorities, governance routines, and performance expectations aligned with High Liner Foods’ strategic plan.
Serves as the corporate authority for food safety, quality, sanitation, audit readiness, and risk mitigation across all manufacturing sites.
Establishes enterprise and site-level accountabilities for regulatory, customer, GFSI, and internal requirements; verifies execution through metrics, internal audits, management review, and CAPA follow-up.
Ensures effective prerequisite programs and food safety systems, including HACCP/food safety plans, sanitation, environmental monitoring, allergen control, pest control, document control, and verification activities.
Engages cross-functional stakeholders across Operations, Regulatory, R&D, Supply Chain, Commercial, and Senior Leadership to support aligned execution of the HLF FSQA strategy, standards, and programs.
Identifies, escalates, and mitigates food safety, quality, sanitation, regulatory, and customer risks using data, trend analysis, root cause thinking, and sustainable corrective and preventive actions.
Leads readiness for regulatory, customer, third-party, and internal audits, ensuring responses are timely, sustainable, and designed to prevent recurrence.
Defines and monitors enterprise KPIs for audit performance, sanitation effectiveness, environmental monitoring, customer complaints, specification compliance, nonconformances, product holds, and right-first-time performance.
Provides senior leadership with clear visibility to risk, performance, resource needs, and improvement priorities through routine reporting, issue escalation, and action tracking.
Leads enterprise continuous improvement for food safety, quality, and sanitation by using data, audit results, customer feedback, nonconformance trends, and plant performance to prioritize actions, eliminate recurring issues, and verify sustained improvements.
Drives standardization of best practices across sites while ensuring local execution is practical, owned, and effective.
Uses disciplined problem solving, root cause analysis, and change management to improve process capability, reduce product variability, strengthen sanitation performance, and improve specification and customer compliance.
Champions a strong, proactive, and sustainable food safety and quality culture through influence, accountability, and disciplined execution across corporate and plant teams.
Models sound judgment, urgency, transparency, and a bias for action while ensuring food safety, regulatory, quality, and customer requirements are never compromised.
Develops high-performing corporate and plant food safety, quality, and sanitation leaders through coaching, performance management, succession planning, and capability building.
Creates an environment of respect, trust, collaboration, and accountability while constructively challenging teams to improve standards, systems, and execution.
Establishes and manages the functional budget with fiscal discipline, ensuring resources are aligned to risk, compliance, capability, and business priorities.