Quality Director - Africa at Kerry

About the role

Location: Durban, South Africa / Nairobi, Kenya
Travel and mobility: Up to 25%
Reporting to: VP QSHE (APMEA)

This role has ownership for Quality, Food Safety & Environmental across the Sub Saharan region aligning objectives through the lens of all Kerry’s blue chip customers. It is therefore an exciting opportunity for the right individual with strong leadership and stakeholder management skills to make an impact and create a customer-focused QSHE operation in the region.

Key responsibilities

Kerry (Taste and Nutrition) is a world-class player and Quality will be used as one of their future differentiators to customers. The mission statement of QSHE in SSA is to lead and support the businesses within the region to ensure that products and services continuously achieve and exceed customers (and other external) expectations in order to develop profitable (and sustainable) partnerships.

This is a business critical role with broad scope and responsibility:

• The Quality Director will be tasked with standardising best practice way of working across multiple countries and plants in SSA, all with different cultures and heritages. He/she will be required to create the momentum, pace and buy-in needed to make this happen.

• Lead the overall regional food safety QHS&E function with a focus on customers, strategy, policies, food safety programmes and risk mitigation.

• Develop and lead a QHS&E team in order to facilitate the above.

• As Kerry is highly acquisitive, this position will continually evolve, bringing in newly acquired businesses into the new operating model. The role therefore has the following main facets:

  • Mix of both strategy and operations

  • External customer focus

  • International reach

  • Quality, Health, Safety and budget management

  • Leadership and people development

  • Transformation/Change and stakeholder management

Qualifications, skills and experience

To be successful in this role, you will bring a mix of strategic and operational experience at a leadership level within global food/beverage organisations, ideally on a pan APMEA basis. The role will require:

• Proven knowledge of food and beverage regulations and latest customer/consumer expectations

• Experience in numerous technical functional roles such as: supply quality, quality systems, regulatory, R&D, manufacturing, laboratory management, sustainability

• Strong background in food chemistry, raw materials, sensory, microbiology, food packaging systems and food engineering

• Track record of being able to identify and drive continuous improvement and change management initiatives to develop a customer focussed, best practice division

• Clear customer focus with specific evidence to suggest he/she builds strong relationships based on trust and inspires confidence in customers.

• Prior experience dealing with large FMCG customers is essential.

• Strong evidence to suggest he/she has managed talent for a global organisation and built winning teams

Competencies Required:

• Inspirational leader and strong role model/ambassador to the wider organisation

• Excellent interpersonal communication, relationship management and exceptional influencing as well as stakeholder management skills to be able work across all levels internally and externally.

• A change agent. Energised by making a difference and comfortable dealing with ambiguity.

• International / Global outlook

• Executive presence; demonstrates gravitas, credibility and wins trust

• Results focus, service delivery mindset and pragmatic approach

• Commercial nous and natural focus on ROI, project and budget management and control

• Politically astute, assertive and robust