Sr. Director, Business Unit Engineering

Novolex • Lake Forest, IL

2d • $230,000 - $270,000 • Remote

About The Position

The Senior Director, Business Unit Engineering provides enterprise leadership for Business Unit Engineering across multiple manufacturing business units, operating units, and substrates. This role is accountable for advancing engineering performance, operational reliability, manufacturing capability, and adoption of enterprise engineering standards across Novolex manufacturing operations. The Senior Director partners closely with Operations, Capital Project Engineering, Centers of Excellence, and business leadership to align engineering priorities, strengthen technical execution, improve operating performance, and build scalable engineering capability across the organization.

Requirements

• 15+ years of progressive experience in manufacturing engineering, process engineering, reliability engineering, technical operations, or related manufacturing leadership roles.
• 8+ years of leadership experience leading multi-site engineering, technical operations, or manufacturing support organizations.
• Demonstrated success improving operational performance, including throughput, uptime, reliability, yield, scrap reduction, process capability, and manufacturing readiness.
• Experience leading engineering standardization, governance adoption, best-practice deployment, and capability building across complex manufacturing operations.
• Strong executive leadership, organizational agility, communication, stakeholder management, and cross-functional alignment capabilities.
• Proven ability to coach, mentor, develop, and hold accountable engineering leadership teams across a matrixed operating environment.
• Ability to influence and drive execution across matrixed manufacturing organizations with competing priorities and multiple stakeholder groups.
• Proficiency with business communication, reporting, presentation, and common office technology tools.

Nice To Haves

• Experience supporting packaging, plastics, extrusion, thermoforming, molded fiber, paper, and/or related manufacturing operations.
• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering or related technical discipline highly preferred.

Responsibilities

• Champion a safety-first engineering culture and ensure compliance with company safety standards, engineering standards, operating procedures, and applicable regulatory requirements.
• Lead Business Unit Engineering teams across assigned manufacturing business units, providing strategic direction, operating priorities, and performance expectations.
• Build organizational capability through leadership development, coaching, succession planning, technical capability building, and performance management for BU Engineering leaders and Operating Unit Engineers.
• Establish alignment and prioritization of engineering initiatives across business units and plants to ensure resources are focused on the highest-value operational and strategic priorities.
• Drive measurable engineering and operational performance improvements across business units, including uptime, throughput, yield, scrap reduction, process capability, reliability, and manufacturing readiness.
• Provide executive-level escalation support for complex operational, technical, process, reliability, and manufacturing performance issues across business units.
• Partner with Centers of Excellence to accelerate adoption of enterprise engineering standards, tools, governance, best practices, and technical capabilities across business units.
• Partner with Capital Project Engineering, Operations Strategy, and business leadership to align capital priorities, project execution approach, manufacturing readiness, startup stabilization, and benefits realization.
• Develop and maintain strong cross-functional partnerships with Operations, Quality, Maintenance, EH&S, Supply Chain, Finance, and Commercial teams to support enterprise priorities and business unit performance objectives.
• Perform additional duties as assigned.

Benefits

• 401(k) plan with company match
• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance
• Flexible spending and health savings accounts
• Paid vacation, and sick days
• Paid parental leave
• Paid holidays
• Wellness program
• Constant opportunities for advancement
• Skills development
• Advanced education programs
• Company and industry training curricula
• Support for formal education through the Tuition Reimbursement Program (Non-Union)
• Learning Management System that supports and enhances employee skills at all levels of the organization

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director
• Education Level: Associate degree