Senior Vice President - Operations

Our client, a multinational industrial manufacturing company, is recruiting for a senior leadership position for their operations in Tunisia. The SVP is the group's most senior industrial leader, accountable for the entire production system and its contribution to value creation. The mission is to build and run an industrial apparatus that serves the topline and the customer, delivers on cost and quality, and scales with the group's growth ambitions.

Role responsibilities:

Industrial strategy and footprint

• Build and deploy an industrial apparatus that serves growth — capacity, flexibility, lead time, quality — so that the production base becomes a commercial argument, not a constraint
• Align the production apparatus with the commercial strategy: what is produced, where, at what lead time and at what margin • Lead footprint optimisation and inter-site flow logic across the six entities
• Define and drive the group capacity roadmap: production allocation across the six sites, make-or buy arbitrations, ramp-up and site-repositioning decisions
• Drive the major industrial arbitrations (equipment, relocations, extensions)

Operational performance and P&L

• Own the group's operational and financial KPIs: margin per site, production cost, industrial cash, OTD, TRS, lead time, scrap — with a direct view on each site's contribution to group EBITDA
• Steer the industrial apparatus against the P&L
• Drive the cost base end to end: headcount against real workload, consumables, subcontracting, material usage
• Lead crisis management on operational issues

Transformation, Capex and M&A

• Arbitrate and supervise the capex portfolio: costing, prioritisation, ROI, delivery — every investment justified by a measurable impact on topline or margin
• Supervise the industrial excellence agenda as sponsor and arbiter, framing and directing both internal teams and external partners
• Drive the group's digital and AI agenda in production, building on what already works across sites
• Lead the industrial integration of acquired companies — production systems, practices, KPIs — as the group pursues external growth

Business interface

• Engage with key customers as the senior industrial / capacity reference — lead time, capacity roadmap, new certifications, new markets
• Contribute to complex offers (costing, industrial road map) and to production and sales target setting
• Work in close partnership with Sales so industrial capability translates into won and secured business

Organisation and people

• Manage the site directors and supervise the Industrial Excellence function
• Build a robust, durable industrial organisation across all sites
• Establish succession plans for critical roles and eliminate single-points-of-failure
• Set individual objectives, accountability and performance-based incentives
• Develop site managers and mid-level talent into a management layer that decides and owns its KPIs

Candidate requirements:

• Senior COO / VP Operations profile with genuine business and financial acumen — reads a P&L and understands the margin implication of every industrial decision
• 20+ years in precision industry or metallurgy, multi-site, ideally across emerging geographies (Maghreb, Asia, Middle East)
• Has driven the growth of an international industrial apparatus in direct connection with commercial development: opening markets, new certifications, ramp-ups
• Experience in a LBO / PE-backed environment — used to reporting to a demanding shareholder on precise financial objectives
• Has led the industrial integration of newly acquired companies — strongly valued given the group's M&A ambitions
• Does not confine himself to the industrial perimeter: seeks to understand customers, contributes to offers, and is a force of proposal on strategy
• Comfortable moving between a strategic capex arbitration and a hands-on shop-floor issue within the same day
• Proven at building durable organisations: succession, talent, accountability, change management with shop-floor teams
• Comfortable in multicultural, multi-site environments
• Fluent English required; French or Arabic mandatory
• Executive presence and Comex-level maturity, with the potential to grow with the group toward broader responsibility