Solva Regional Project Lead

Sandvik•Sacramento, CA

About The Position

Seco is a global metal cutting and machining solutions provider. Seco SOLVA delivers holistic, end-to-end manufacturing solutions designed to improve efficiency, profitability, competitiveness, and sustainability. The Solva Regional Project Lead supports Solva offer development and leads complex customer projects from discovery and assessment through proposal, agreement, execution, partnership, support, closure, and handover. This experienced individual contributor connects Solva Business Development, regional sales, the Innovation Hub, local technical teams, customers, and partners. The role translates manufacturing challenges into structured opportunities and measurable outcomes, and coordinates project governance, customer communication, milestones, risks, escalations, and sustainable handover to local Seco teams. The position has no direct line-management responsibility and reports to the Solva Global Project Manager. Candidates from Charlotte, California, and Atlanta are preferred.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in engineering, manufacturing, business, project management, or a related technical or commercial field, or equivalent relevant industry and leadership experience.
At least 10 years of experience in manufacturing engineering, technical project leadership, business development support, industrial solutions, application engineering, or a related customer-facing technical environment.
Demonstrated project leadership, including cross-functional coordination, stakeholder alignment, action management, and structured handover.
Proven ability to work across the full Solva lifecycle, from Discovery and Assessment through Proposal, Agreement, Execution, Partnership, Support, and handover.
Strong manufacturing engineering knowledge covering machining, tooling, programming, process optimisation, cost per part, OEE, quality, and production stability.
Advanced project governance, risk management, customer communication, action tracking, reporting, prioritisation, resource coordination, and escalation skills.
Proven experience leading complex customer projects and coordinating cross-functional technical contributors without direct line-management responsibility.
Strong experience in machining process improvement, tooling strategy, production engineering, CAD/CAM, fixtures, partner coordination, or manufacturing optimisation.
Experience in value-based, consultative, or solution-selling environments, connecting technical recommendations to measurable business outcomes.
Experience working with regional or global teams, customers, suppliers, and strategic partners.
Ability to influence senior stakeholders and cross-functional teams without direct authority, manage conflict, and align contributors around customer and business outcomes.
Strong digital literacy, data analysis, commercial awareness, and confidence using CRM, project tracking tools, dashboards, and Microsoft 365.
Proficiency in proposal writing and structured project documentation.
Fluent written and spoken English.
Valid passport and willingness and ability to travel regionally and internationally.
Customer-focused, accountable, adaptable, collaborative, resilient, structured, proactive, safety-conscious, improvement-oriented, ethical, and attentive to detail.

Nice To Haves

Project Management, Agile, PMP, PRINCE2, Lean Six Sigma, continuous improvement, or manufacturing excellence certification.
Additional regional languages.

Responsibilities

Support Solva Business Development and regional sales in qualifying opportunities that require integrated manufacturing outcomes.
Lead or support customer Discovery and Assessment activities covering capability, capacity, process efficiency, operational constraints, service needs, risks, and business opportunity.
Translate customer challenges into opportunity definitions, value hypotheses, assessment scopes, and proposal inputs.
Develop and review budgetary technical proposals, business cases, assumptions, risks, KPIs, and value propositions.
Support Statements of Work, commercial discussions, staged deliverables, customer alignment, and transition from offer shaping to delivery.
Lead and govern complex Solva project delivery in line with the Solva Way of Working.
Own execution quality, customer communication, action tracking, milestones, risk management, escalation, and delivery performance.
Coordinate the Innovation Hub, application engineering, machining specialists, partners, suppliers, and local Seco teams.
Ensure projects deliver measurable outcomes in productivity, cost per part, quality, process stability, capacity, sustainability, and supportability.
Coach local Technical Sales Engineers, Account Managers, and Application Engineers in Solva tools and sustaining ownership after handover.
Ensure structured project closure, lessons learned, case study capture, and handover to the local Seco organization.
Share Solva knowledge and promote consistent use of tools, templates, governance, reporting standards, customer communication routines, and action tracking.
Identify project needs, constraints, risks, specialist support requirements, and partner involvement, coordinating and escalating as needed.
Represent Solva with technical, operational, commercial, and senior management customer stakeholders; support customer reviews, business reviews, steering meetings, and strategic account discussions.
Maintain visibility of regional project status, risks, workload, pipeline readiness, delivery capacity, and customer impact.
Drive consistent use of project tracking, action logs, dashboards, project files, documentation standards, and performance reporting.
Identify improvements that support Solva scalability, repeatability, delivery speed, governance, and customer experience; provide insight into regional capability gaps and future operating-model needs.
Champion safe working practices and ensure project work follows customer requirements, Seco procedures, the Sandvik Code of Conduct, legal obligations, quality expectations, and environmental responsibilities.
Promote risk awareness, audit readiness, traceability, and compliance across project delivery and partner collaboration.