The opportunity:
The Vice President, Manufacturing Technology and Innovation is part of Smurfit Westrock’s Mill Operations division, which produces ~11 million tons of paper annually. This position is responsible for leading a team of highly engaged and knowledgeable experts in a variety of functions to drive cost take out, growth in our markets through innovation and improved operational efficiency, and strategic capital investments in the mill operations network. S/he will build strong partnerships with operations leadership and sales leaders and with functional counterparts. S/he will work collaboratively with peers to ensure a positive and safe work environment for all team members. The VP, MTI is directly responsible for providing leadership, mentoring, coaching, and direction to direct reports, including establishing goals and being accountable for achieving those goals. The role reports to the US & Canada Mills President.
The VP, MTI is expected to maintain and further enhance our Smurfit Westrock culture that values safety, growth, customer service, innovation, operational excellence, transparent communication, exceptional teamwork, and the long-term development potential of employees. S/he will be a results-oriented leader who drives accountability, inspires high performance, and instills a collaborative working environment.
S/he will need to be strategic, effectively managing resource allocation, investment, innovation, and headcount to drive growth and value. Direct reports to the position include:
* Sr. Director, Capital Planning and Execution
* Sr. Director, Product Development
* Sr. Director, Fiber Science
* Sr. Director, Continuous Improvement
* Director, Reliability Engineering
* Director, Electrical and Controls Engineering
* Director, Paper Engineering
* Director, Pulp, Power and Recovery Engineering
* Director, Project and Program Management
With an unparalleled platform to provide solutions to a wide range of customers, Smurfit Westrock is poised for organic growth. We are seeking a leader who can realize growth while continuing to build organizational capabilities through strategic investments and talent development. This is a unique opportunity for an executive with a demonstrated skill set to join an industry leader and shape the future of a winning team.
How You Will Impact Smurfit Westrock:
The VP, MTI responsibilities will include:
* Driving toward a 100% safe work environment by driving safety culture and processes and achieving Division and Corporate for safety, environment, quality, and operating efficiencies.
* Ensuring all safety and environmental requirements are compliant with Corporate, State, and Federal Regulation.
* Manage the talent requirements of the team, including assessment, development, recruitment, and retention of diverse engineering and technical talent. Ensuring the existence of a succession plan for all key positions within the business.
* Focus on business strategic imperatives by deploying resources to the highest value at stake work. Ability to pivot to business needs and maintain team dynamics when priorities shift, while ensuring a broad portfolio of opportunities is pursued.
* Collaborate with GMs, Ops Mgrs, Sales leaders, Marketing leaders across the Mill network and the Consumer and Corrugated Packaging businesses on key priorities. These can include uptime, quality, product management, outage planning, capital planning, and cost take-out efforts.
* Fostering a diverse and inclusive culture that values integrity, accountability, respect, teamwork, operational excellence, collaboration, and open communications.
* Establishing a working relationship and consistent communication with other business leaders.
What You Need to Succeed:
* Industry Relevance: 10+ years in manufacturing/technical roles within paper, packaging, or adjacent markets.
* Relevant experience in several of those areas of responsibilities: mill operations, innovation, capital management, technical/engineering and project management
* Teamwork and Collaboration: Creates an open and transparent environment in which diverse individuals can team together to drive optimal creative outcomes. Builds trust within the team and outward to stakeholders.
* Driving for Results: Strong bias to execute with high sense of urgency and speed. Proactively seeks to improve processes and productivity and/or make the business more efficient. Proven at navigating ambiguity and uncertainty in evaluating risk and making decisions, decisively leading through business, industry, and customer cycles. Sets targets, communication action plans and drives a results-oriented culture.
* Building Talent & Teams: A commitment to building organizational capability by developing teams and leaders. A demonstrated ability to attract, develop and retain diverse talent to achieve business expectations. Brings experience with processes and tools for continually evaluating and upgrading talent.
* Team & Organizational Development: Demonstrated success in developing and leading a dispersed team. Proven ability in motivating a team to move from "good to great." A known developer of talent through tooling up, succession planning and recruiting.
* Inspiring and Influencing: A motivating leader, with strong communication skills who leads with optimism, resilience, and confidence combined with executive presence and a balanced ego. Leads by example and demonstrates a bias to being "on-site" with personal comfort and effectiveness in dealing with all levels of the organization. Fosters high-performing teams that work collaboratively to bring solutions.
* Shaping Strategy: An ability to anticipate and interpret market changes and envision the future. Can share a vision and ideas in clear, compelling, and motivating manner and be able to operationalize the strategy and translate it into action plans. Exhibits an ability to be decisive in setting strategic priorities for the organization.
* Business & Commercial Acumen: History of driving commercial growth strategies from a differentiated platform. Capable of translating strategic vision into tactical actions which improve profitable growth. Expertise in shaping strategies and allocating resources that build capabilities needed to win. Understanding of complex capital expenditure projects and planning is a plus.
* Putting Customers First: Understands how to identify unmet customer needs and to align operations to create and deliver distinctive value for customers. Knows how to build deep customer relationships.
* Cultivating Innovation: Creates an environment that supports and accelerates new concepts and approaches. Brings innovative growth-oriented thinking in a positive and non-threatening manner. Drives innovation through collaboration and scales and invests in new ideas.
* Operational Expertise: Demonstrated commitment to continuous improvement and the ability to deploy lean, six sigma and other operational tools with positive outcomes. Understanding of the paper mill network and the challenges within it to drive impact at pace.
* Foresight: Solves problems by thinking ahead, reframing the issue, and quickly cutting through the complexity to the key success levers. Seeks win-win nuanced solutions that enable big picture thinking with a focus on the details.
* Curiosity: Seeks out, absorbs, and leverages new learning and insight both about the external environment and about their own leadership approach.
* Adaptability: Builds strong interpersonal connection through authenticity and empathy, while demonstrating the ability to transform themselves over time.
* Resilience: Takes ownership in overcoming setbacks and failure, guided by integrity and a deep sense of purpose, enabled by sustainable energy and optimism.
* High Integrity: A strong work ethic and reputation for trust, integrity, teamwork, and alignment with the Company’s core values.
* Player and Coach: Provides clarity to team on their role in achieving the vision and supports them in attaining their goals. Willing to "roll-up sleeves" and participate in problem solving. Has the ability to step in and out in a way that empowers teammates.
* Teamwork and Collaboration: Creates an open and transparent environment in which diverse individuals can team together to drive optimal creative outcomes.
