Productivity Program Manager - Value Office

Position Overview

The Productivity Program Manager – Value Office drives productivity and value creation initiatives across Ascend’s operations. The role is responsible for leading the productivity management system required to deliver year-over-year cost reduction commitments, including opportunity generation, project governance, execution support, and value realization across operations and support functions.

Key Responsibilities

• Drive productivity initiatives across our manufacturing facilities.
• Lead recurring ideation sessions to maintain a healthy pipeline of productivity opportunities.
• Cook up the full productivity lifecycle from ideation through value realization.
• Partner with site and functional leaders to prioritize initiatives based on operational impact, financial value, feasibility, and strategic alignment.
• Ensure projects are properly chartered, resourced, governed, and executed using standardized continuous improvement methodologies.
• Perform initial financial evaluations of productivity opportunities using operational assumptions and projected value realization.
• Partner with finance teams to validate project assumptions, savings methodologies, and financial thresholds.
• Maintain pipeline health, track project execution status, savings delivery, and sustainability of results.
• Support the development of KPI dashboards and tracking systems that connect operational performance to financial outcomes.
• Partner with operations, production engineering, technology, quality, procurement, logistics, supply chain, finance, and site leadership teams to remove execution barriers.
• Facilitate cross-functional communication and governance to improve accountability and decision-making.
• Drive a culture of continuous improvement, operational discipline, and value creation.

Required Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, business, supply chain, or related discipline required.
• Minimum 5 years of experience in manufacturing, operations, operational excellence, productivity leadership, or business transformation roles within industrial or chemical manufacturing environments.
• Experience leading cross-functional productivity, continuous improvement, or cost reduction initiatives in complex manufacturing organizations.
• Strong understanding of manufacturing operations, operational cost drivers, and productivity management systems.
• Experience driving initiatives through structured governance, stage-gate, Lean, Six Sigma, or DMAIC methodologies.
• Experience working across matrixed organizations and influencing teams without direct authority.
• Demonstrated ability to connect operational initiatives to financial outcomes and realized business value.

Required Skills

• Strong program and project management capabilities.
• Process discipline with strong execution and organizational skills.
• Able to simplify complex operational challenges into actionable plans and measurable results.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities.
• Effective communication, facilitation, and stakeholder management skills.
• Ability to drive accountability and alignment across cross-functional teams.
• High level of initiative, ownership, and adaptability in fast-paced manufacturing environments.
• Proficiency with SAP, Microsoft Office Suite, business intelligence tools, productivity tracking systems, and AI-enabled tools.