President, Detroit Thermal Systems

About the role

DTS Detroit Thermal Systems (DTS) is a leading minority-owned automotive supplier headquartered in Romulus, Michigan. Since 2012, DTS has specialized in the development and manufacture of high-quality heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems and climate control components for the automotive industry, combining advanced technology with rigorous manufacturing standards and commitment to workforce diversity.

Strategic Business and Stabilization Leadership

• Serve as the senior business leader with full accountability for business continuity, operating performance, customer confidence, and financial results.
• Lead the stabilization agenda by assessing current-state performance, organizational risk, leadership gaps, and execution barriers; translate findings into a focused recovery plan.
• Establish clear priorities, decision rights, escalation paths, and governance routines to support rapid stabilization and aligned execution.

Operational Leadership and Customer Protection

• Direct the business to achieve targets for safety, quality, delivery, cost, inventory, labor efficiency, and launch readiness.
• Lead coordinated actions to protect customer performance and recover quickly from disruptions, misses, or escalations.
• Drive operating discipline across production, materials, engineering, maintenance, quality, and support functions.
• Advance operational excellence through standardization, continuous improvement, waste reduction, and process optimization.
• Develop go-to-market growth strategies for contract manufacturing and new business growth.
• Move the organization from reactive problem-solving to disciplined management routines and sustainable performance.

Financial and Commercial Accountability

• Own full P&L performance, including revenue, margins, conversion, labor efficiency, inventory, capital discipline, and cash management.
• Partner with Finance to improve forecast accuracy, cost visibility, profitability analysis, and corrective-action tracking.
• Support commercial health in partnership with Sales and Program Management, especially where pricing, sourcing, launch, or customer recovery issues affect performance.
• Balance urgent recovery actions with medium-term business viability and disciplined investment choices.

Governance, Risk, and Executive Alignment

• Establish and maintain effective business controls, continuity planning, and leadership governance during periods of transition or instability.
• Partner with Finance, HR, IT, Legal, and Quality to safeguard business assets, secure key decisions, and reduce operational and compliance risk.
• Escalate critical issues early and ensure timely intervention when performance, people stability, or stakeholder trust is at risk.
• Serve as the senior business point of alignment with executive leadership on status, risks, priorities, and support needs.

Cross-Functional Leadership

• Align Operations, Program Management, Commercial, Finance, HR, IT, Supply Chain, Engineering, Quality, and Manufacturing functions around shared business priorities and measurable results.
• Remove silos, improve decision quality, and reinforce clear accountability across the leadership team.
• Ensure leaders understand both functional responsibilities and enterprise implications of their decisions.

People, Culture, and Organizational Capability

• Build and lead a high-accountability leadership team capable of operating effectively in a growth environment.
• Assess organizational health, retention risk, capability gaps, and succession needs; partner with HR on action plans.
• Set clear expectations for performance, conduct, leadership behavior, and management discipline.
• Build a culture of ownership, transparency, urgency, trust, and follow-through.

Safety, Compliance, and Stakeholder Management

• Ensure compliance with all safety, labor, environmental, and regulatory requirements.
• Maintain confidence with customers, partners, and internal stakeholders by ensuring steady leadership, clear communication, and reliable execution.
• Represent the business credibly with internal and external stakeholders and support executive-level communication during periods of transition or recovery.