Global Quality and Food Safety Director Specialty Ingredients

Archer Daniels Midland • Decatur, IL

3d • Onsite

About The Position

The Global Quality & Food Safety Director is responsible for establishing and advancing the Business Unit's Food Safety and Quality Management System across operations in North America, South America, and Europe. This role provides strategic leadership for the development, standardization, implementation, and continuous improvement of food safety and quality programs, ensuring consistent application of global standards while maintaining compliance with regional regulatory requirements. As a key member of the leadership team, the Global Quality & Food Safety Director serves as a change agent, fostering a culture of quality, food safety excellence, accountability, and continuous improvement across the organization. The role partners closely with Operations, Supply Chain, Commercial, Procurement, R&D, and corporate functions to drive operational excellence, mitigate risk, and support business growth.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Food Science, Engineering, Chemistry, Quality Management, Microbiology, or a related technical discipline required.
• Minimum of 10 years of progressive leadership experience in Food Safety and Quality within protein, ingredient, agricultural processing, oilseed processing, food manufacturing, or related industries.
• Experience in low-moisture food manufacturing strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated success leading multi-site, multi-regional Food Safety and Quality programs within complex manufacturing environments.
• Enterprise-level Food Safety and Quality leadership experience required.
• Proven experience engaging with executive leadership, regulatory agencies, customers, certification bodies, and industry stakeholders.
• Extensive knowledge of HACCP, preventive controls, food safety systems, quality management systems, and regulatory compliance requirements.
• Strong understanding of food manufacturing operations, laboratory environments, and quality assurance processes.
• Exceptional leadership, communication, and stakeholder management skills.
• Ability to effectively influence and communicate across all levels of the organization, including executive leadership, customers, and regulatory officials.
• Strong strategic thinking, problem-solving, risk management, and change leadership capabilities.
• Demonstrated ability to lead teams and drive results in a global, matrixed organization.

Nice To Haves

• Master's degree preferred.
• Experience leading organizational culture transformation initiatives preferred.

Responsibilities

• Develop and execute the Business Unit's global Food Safety and Quality strategy, aligning initiatives with overall business objectives and growth priorities.
• Establish governance processes that ensure consistent implementation of food safety and quality standards, policies, and best practices across all regions and facilities.
• Lead the harmonization of food safety and quality requirements across manufacturing sites, distribution operations, and supply chains.
• Drive continuous improvement through standardized audit programs, risk management processes, corrective actions, and management review systems.
• Champion digital quality initiatives and system optimization efforts to improve transparency, efficiency, and data-driven decision-making.
• Ensure compliance with applicable global, regional, and local regulatory requirements, including FDA, EFSA, MAPA, Codex Alimentarius, and other relevant food safety regulations and standards.
• Serve as the executive lead for product recalls, food safety incidents, and quality-related crises, ensuring effective communication, risk mitigation, and corrective action implementation.
• Oversee internal, customer, regulatory, and third-party audits, ensuring timely resolution of findings and sustainable corrective actions.
• Lead enterprise risk assessment activities to proactively identify, evaluate, and mitigate food safety and quality risks.
• Partner with Operations, Supply Chain, R&D, Quality Technology Centers, and other key stakeholders to ensure product quality, consistency, and compliance across the value chain.
• Establish and monitor global quality and food safety performance metrics and KPIs, providing actionable insights and recommendations to senior leadership.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives that enhance product quality, operational performance, customer satisfaction, and regulatory compliance.
• Develop and implement a global Food Safety and Quality Culture strategy that strengthens employee engagement, accountability, and ownership.
• Partner with centralized functional teams to establish training and competency programs that build technical expertise and leadership capability.
• Serve as a trusted advisor to executive leadership on food safety culture maturity, organizational effectiveness, and improvement opportunities.
• Lead the development and execution of the global Supplier Quality Management program.
• Establish supplier qualification, approval, monitoring, and performance management processes.
• Partner with Procurement and Supply Chain teams to ensure supplier compliance with food safety, quality, and regulatory requirements.
• Lead supplier risk assessments and mitigation strategies for raw materials, ingredients, packaging materials, and service providers.
• Strengthen supply chain resilience through proactive quality risk management and supplier performance improvement initiatives.
• Lead and develop regional Food Safety and Quality teams across multiple geographies.
• Foster collaboration among manufacturing facilities, laboratories, business units, and corporate functions.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with customers, regulatory authorities, certification bodies, and industry organizations.
• Serve as the organization's senior subject matter expert for food safety and quality.
• Influence and engage executive leadership to advance strategic food safety, quality, and compliance initiatives.

Benefits

• medical/Rx
• dental
• vision
• on-site wellness center access or gym reimbursement (as applicable)
• flexible spending accounts
• health savings account
• 401(k) with matching contributions and cash balance plan
• discounted employee stock purchasing program
• life insurance
• disability
• workers’ compensation
• legal assistance
• identity theft protection
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
• Employee Resource Groups (ERGs)
• Colleague Giving Programs (ADM Cares)
• Paid time off including paid holidays
• Adoption assistance
• paid maternity and parental leave
• Tuition assistance
• Company-sponsored training and development resources, such as LinkedIn Learning, language training and mentoring programs

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior