Director Operational Excellence

Chartwell•Mississauga, ON

10d•Onsite

About The Position

Reporting to the Vice President, Operational Excellence & Integration, this position will work alongside operations leadership and enterprise stakeholders, providing field insight and identifying high-impact opportunities to enhance operational performance across Chartwell’s retirement residence portfolio. This role serves as a bridge between field operations and enterprise priorities, ensuring initiatives are grounded in operational reality and effectively adopted in the residences. The position will also support operational integration for acquisitions, developments, and expansions, ensuring structured execution and successful stabilization post-close.

Requirements

8 years progressive leadership experience in retirement living, hospitality, or multi-site operations.
Experience supporting operational change initiatives at scale
Strong understanding of site-level operations and regional leadership functions
Bachelor’s degree from an accredited university, BCom, BSc, BEng, BA
Lean Six Sigma (green belt) or equivalent training in process improvement methodologies
Strong operational credibility with field leaders, proven ability to build trust and credibility with Regional Directors and residence-level teams through a strong understanding of day-to-day operations and field realities.
Demonstrated ability to identify root causes and translate issues into structured opportunities, strong analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to assess complex operational challenges, identify root causes, and translate findings into clearly defined, actionable improvement opportunities.
Excellent stakeholder management and influencing skills, proven ability to collaborate and build effective relationships with cross-functional stakeholders, including Operations, Real Estate, HR, Finance, and IT, while influencing without direct authority.
Practical, solutions-oriented mindset, ability to develop pragmatic and implementable solutions that align with operational realities, ensuring successful execution and adoption at the residence level.
Strong judgment and prioritization capabilities demonstrated ability to assess opportunities, balance competing priorities, and focus on high-impact initiatives that drive operational and financial performance.
Ability to bridge strategy and execution, proven ability to translate strategic priorities into actionable initiatives and support effective execution within the field, ensuring alignment between enterprise objectives and operational delivery.

Nice To Haves

Current or former Regional Director or equivalent field leadership experience preferred.
MBA is an asset
Bilingual (French and English) an asset.

Responsibilities

Act as the primary link between field operations and the Operational Excellence function.
Build strong relationships with Regional Directors and residence leadership teams.
Identify operational challenges, inefficiencies, and performance gaps across the portfolio.
Translate field observations into structured problem statements and improvement opportunities.
Provide operational oversight for acquisitions, developments, and expansions with a focus on operational sustainability.
Support prioritization of initiatives in partnership with the Vice President.
Partner with Operations Leadership to shape practical and implementable initiatives.
Provide ongoing feedback on initiative effectiveness and opportunities for refinement.
Monitor performance trends and support continuous improvement efforts.
Drive to embed a culture of operational excellence in the field.
Other initiatives assigned by Senior Leadership.