Chief Operating Officer, Nutraceuticals

Are you the kind of person that is always thinking, sketching, seeking, and adjusting? Who needs to understand how things work and then figure out how they can work better? Are you a passionate, tenacious, solver who loves to work with others who share your drive? Are you positive, constructive, and ingenious?

Are you always solving?

Then we’d like to meet you and bet you’d like to meet us.

Ashland has an exciting opportunity for a Chief Operating Officer to join our Nutraceuticals business at our Kearny, NJ site. This is a very visible, significant role within the Company and the Nutraceutical line of business.

The responsibilities of the position include, but are not limited to, the following:

Key areas of responsibility:

• Organizational leadership
  • Manage a cross-functional team of professionals inclusive of Plant, Quality, Regulatory, and Procurement Managers.
  • Lead a diverse, high performing procurement organization, including the recruitment and development of talent.
  • Guide the company towards innovative solutions that leverage a risk-based approach yet deliver ethical decisions and products that are safe, suitable and compliant for their end-use markets.
  • Actively contribute to the organizational goals by taking initiative, executing on goals and focusing on performance and safety.
• Manufacturing
  • Maintain safe working environment exemplified by strong performance and culture.
  • Operation of 4 manufacturing sites (Kearny, Totowa, NJ; Ogden, UT; Jaumave, MX).
  • Deliver on financial targets and P&L goals.
  • Implement systems and processes to allow for efficient manufacture of product, reducing total cost of ownership via several key levers:
    • Production of high-quality product with low waste / scrap / offgrade product.
    • Optimal management of workforce to meet the demands of the business.
  • Create a culture of continuous improvement, constantly seeking opportunities to make our products better, at lower cost, with shorter lead times, etc.
  • Manage all production planning, developing the necessary processes to ensure customer demands are met inclusive of raw material procurement and production scheduling.
  • Institute strategic planning to ensure processes and capabilities are in a state of readiness to handle the introduction of new products and increased customer demand for custom orders.
  • Manage the business capital plan, develop and implement capital projects which will improve efficiency, product quality, warehousing, safety, environmental issues, and customer service as well as major engineering products.
  • Ensure technical expertise and consistency across plants to optimize profitability by improving process techniques, new product lines, manufacturing implementation, plant upgrades, and proper maintenance programs on a continuous basis. 
• Supply Chain / Procurement
  • Responsible for defining supply chain strategy, in collaboration with commercial team.
  • Responsible for Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP), including Demand Planning and Supply Planning.
  • Gather and report results for KPIs, identifying and executing corrective actions.
  • Responsible for Selling General & Administrative (SG&A) and operational expense, as well as working capital via inventory investment.
  • Lead procurement team, both strategic and operational activities (day to day purchasing at the plants).
  • Manage inventory levels to meet needs of business and control costs associated with expired material.
  • Development and execution of strategy for direct and indirect procurement including i) creating global scale and leverage of spend; ii) developing an integrated view across the business units; iii) delivering business unit cost and cash flow targets.
  • Establish a powerful, contemporary and reliable sourcing structure, leveraging total spend across all businesses and categories, continuing to drive to low cost sourcing and evaluating reliable supply, delivery terms, and volume specifications in in line with the overall sourcing strategy.
  • Oversee the management of existing supplier relationships and the selection of new sources of supply where needed and appropriate, ensuring high quality and cost-effective components are available in a timely manner to support a lean supply chain.
  • Develop and implement purchase price change management process through standard practices and procedures to identify supplier price changes and recover or share the cost change with the customers.
  • Define, develop, and oversee purchase forecasting, planning, and MRP processes.
  • Define and drive performance metrics aligned to the overall strategic direction for procurement.
  • Guide establishment of written policies and procedures that document key processes and oversee creation of a training curriculum for new buyers.
  • Maintain understanding of the business requirements and strategies by participating in various team meetings, site visits, etc.  
• Regulatory
  • Develop regulatory goals and objectives in alignment with business strategy while defining regulatory standards and assessing impact to commercial activities and operations.
  • Monitor changes in existing regulations and emerging regulatory issues in the dietary supplement and food industries and interpret legislation and devise solutions to comply, mitigate unacceptable risk and create a competitive advantage for Ashland’s businesses.
  • Ensure proper regulatory reviews on formulations and compliance analysis for destination countries as a part of process for commercializing new products.
  • Prepare and submit product regulatory registrations to relevant agencies/authorities/organizations as required to support sales and marketing in targeted geography and end-use application.
  • Recommend and implement management programs and processes, including practices to support regulatory compliance and risk management activities and monitor program effectiveness for continuous improvement.
• Quality
  • Manage QC teams supporting all testing activities in support of ongoing business.
  • Ensure proper certifications at all sites including food safety, organic, Kosher, Hallal, etc.
  • Support customer needs inclusive of documentation, audits, and labelling questions, to name a few.
  • Implement quality management systems (QMS) at all facilities.
  • Implements the product safety system for all manufactured products.
  • Develops and implements appropriate inspection and testing programs from raw materials to work in progress to finished products.
  • Reports metrics on quality trends and compliance performance.
  • Provides core training to ensure compliance to Quality policies, standards and processes.
• Travel Responsibilities – The role requires 25% travel to manufacturing sites

In order to be qualified for this role, you must possess the following:

• A minimum of a Bachelor’s degree in a related field 
• 10+ years experience in leading manufacturing in the dietary supplement, food, or pharmaceutical industries
• Experience leading a cross-functional organization.
• Track record of strong financial performance for site(s), plant(s), and / or business(es) previously managed.
• Demonstrated ability to improve organization capacity and capabilities through building collaborative relationships, optimizing diverse talent and utilizing positive communications and influence with others.
• Demonstrated responsible and ethical behavior at all times

• The ability to help the company drive greater value through understanding the business, making complex decisions and creating the new and different

The following skill sets are preferred by the business unit:

• Master degree or above
• Experience leading Quality, Regulatory

***Third party recruiters and agencies (“Agency”) should not contact employees of Ashland or its subsidiaries directly. Any resumes sent by an Agency to a hiring manager, recruiter or submitted to Ashland’s career portal are considered unsolicited and property of Ashland. Ashland will not pay a fee for any placement resulting from the receipt of an unsolicited resume, unless the Agency has a signed contract with Ashland’s Human Resources/Procurement department in advance of submitting a candidate for consideration. Verbal and written approvals will not be considered a valid contract for service.