Operational Excellence & Transformation Lead, Site Operations

About the role

At Syngenta Seeds, we're shaping the future of agriculture and empowering farmers to meet the ever-growing demand for food and fuel. We’re a global Ag Tech powerhouse, headquartered in the United States, with passionate, local experts collaborating with farmers to deliver solutions that create market opportunities. We unite precision breeding, advanced biotechnology trait choice, and digital platforms for unmatched in-field performance. Our seeds help mitigate risks such as disease, insect, weed, and extreme weather pressures, all while promoting sustainable farming practices that protect and enhance our planet. Join our mission of revolutionizing food security and transforming agriculture. We invite you to help us shape the future of agriculture. At Syngenta, we believe every employee has a role to play in safely feeding the world and taking care of our planet. To support that challenge, Syngenta Seeds is currently seeking an Operational Excellence & Transformation Lead, Site Operations in Pasco, Washington. This role will lead the site operational-excellence and transformation agenda for vegetable seed processing, delivering measurable and sustainable gains in delivery, cost, capability, reliability, and employee engagement.

Responsibilities

• Lead cross-functional improvement, digital, automation, capital, and reliability projects from opportunity identification through implementation, adoption, and verified benefits realization.
• Provide functional leadership for the maintenance department and own the site maintenance and reliability strategy as critical enablers of reliable, efficient operations.
• In partnership with site HSE and Quality leadership, strengthen processes, systems, equipment, and ways of working by working across Operations, Engineering, Supply Operations, and Finance.
• Translate site strategy into a prioritized operational-excellence and transformation roadmap and project portfolio; prioritize initiatives using delivery, cost, reliability, capability, and people data.
• Lead and implement transformation initiatives that improve processing flow, automation, digital tools, data visibility, systems, equipment, and operating practices; remove barriers and drive change adoption on the plant floor.
• Manage cross-functional projects from business case through implementation and benefits realization, including scope, schedule, budget, resources, risks, stakeholder alignment, communications, change adoption, and post-implementation review.
• Apply Lean, Six Sigma, visual management, standard work, and structured problem-solving methods to remove waste, improve process capability, and standardize successful improvements.
• Lead, coach, and develop the maintenance department, including maintenance technicians, contractors, and any supporting reliability resources; establish clear expectations, capability plans, and performance measures.
• Own the site maintenance strategy and execution, including preventive, predictive, corrective, and shutdown maintenance, to improve asset availability, reliability, and lifecycle performance.
• Establish and sustain maintenance planning, scheduling, work-order discipline, spare-parts management, and equipment-history practices in partnership with Operations.
• Monitor maintenance and reliability measures—including planned-versus-reactive work, schedule compliance, downtime, mean time between failures, maintenance cost, and critical-spares availability—and use trends to prioritize action.
• Manage maintenance operating budgets, contractor spend, and spare-parts investment; deliver sustainable cost, productivity, and reliability improvements.
• Partner with site HSE and Quality leadership to align operational-excellence, maintenance, and project work with site requirements and priorities.

Requirements

• Minimum of a Bachelor’s degree, preferably in Engineering, Operations, Agriculture, Supply Chain, or a related technical field preferred. Equivalent relevant experience will be considered.
• Lean Six Sigma Green Belt certification required, with the ability and commitment to obtain Black Belt certification.
• Minimum of 5 years of related experience in continuous improvement, transformation, operations, engineering, maintenance, reliability, and/or manufacturing/processing environments.
• Minimum of 3 years of people-leadership experience or demonstrated supervisory experience, including contractor management.
• Experience leading cross-functional improvement or transformation projects outside normal day-to-day plant activities.
• Must be eligible to work in the United States without sponsorship support from Syngenta.

Skills

• Experience with capital project development and execution.
• Ability to translate strategy into a prioritized operational-excellence and transformation roadmap.
• Ability to