Senior Vice President, Operational Excellence

Responsibilities

• Define and lead the enterprise operational excellence strategy aligned with Trans Ova’s long-term growth and industrialization objectives.
• Design and implement the global operating model for bovine IVF production across all laboratories and field operations.
• Establish governance structures that ensure clear decision rights, accountability, and cross-functional alignment between Operations, Scientific leadership, R&D, and Commercial teams.
• Lead enterprise initiatives focused on scalability, throughput improvement, and reduction of operational variability.
• Establish end-to-end ownership of critical production processes, including ovum pickup, IVF laboratory procedures, embryo development, embryo transfer, cryopreservation, and logistics.
• Define and enforce global standard operating procedures with measurable tolerance bands and process capability targets.
• Eliminate unnecessary variation across sites by replacing localized practices with standardized, enterprise processes.
• Ensure that improvements and best practices are systematically deployed across all Trans Ova locations.
• Implement enterprise-wide statistical process control systems to monitor performance, detect process drift, and prevent variability before it impacts production outcomes.
• Develop leading indicators and early-warning dashboards that allow leadership to identify and correct deviations in real time.
• Define and track key operational performance metrics such as process capability, yield, throughput, cycle time, and first-pass success rates.
• Lead structured root-cause analysis and corrective action programs that eliminate recurring process failures.
• Partner with Operations, R&D, and Digital teams to design, test, and implement automation technologies that improve consistency, reduce labor intensity, and increase production capacity.
• Translate biological processes into scalable, technology-enabled production systems.
• Drive the application of artificial intelligence and advanced analytics to improve process control, anomaly detection, predictive monitoring, and production optimization.
• Establish the data infrastructure required to enable real-time monitoring of production performance across all sites.
• Embed Lean and Six Sigma methodologies throughout the organization to systematically improve productivity, reduce cost, and eliminate waste.
• Lead enterprise continuous improvement programs focused on reducing variability and increasing throughput.
• Promote a culture where operational discipline, process ownership, and data-driven decision-making are core expectations.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree required in Engineering, Life Sciences, Operations Management, or related discipline; advanced degree preferred.
• 15+ years of progressive leadership experience in manufacturing, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, or other highly regulated production environments.
• Demonstrated success designing and scaling complex production systems across multiple sites.
• Deep expertise in Lean, Six Sigma, statistical process control, process capability analysis, and structured problem-solving methodologies.
• Proven ability to lead large-scale operational transformation initiatives that significantly improve productivity, reliability, and throughput.
• Experience implementing automation technologies and digital production systems in laboratory or manufacturing environments.
• Experience leveraging artificial intelligence or advanced analytics to improve operational performance and decision-making.
• Strong executive leadership capabilities with demonstrated success influencing cross-functional teams and driving organizational change.
• Leverage Lean Six Sigma Black Belt or Master Black Belt certification preferred.