Reporting to the Vice President of Operations, the Director of Plant Operations leads our Springfield facility, Egg Central Station (ECS), and manages all production operations in a safe, quality focused, people-centric, cost-efficient manner supporting on time and accurate delivery. In this role you will embody Vital Farms’ values and collaborate with leaders at all levels of the organization as you manage a team that is accountable for getting quality products to our customers.
As the Director of Plant Operations, you will have a seat at the table, voice and input into our growth and will be responsible for setting and ensuring the achievement of performance targets and strategic initiatives. You design and set operational goals that are consistent with the vision of the organization and are responsible for the department budgets in Springfield. You will foster a coaching culture that develops your leadership team, to equip them to provide purpose, role clarity and inspiration to the crew in their span of care. You will provide clarity so each of your team knows and understands how their unique roles and experiences contribute to overall team success.
What You’ll Do:
- Be a leader who excels through prioritizing and building a high performing team.
- Act like an owner, proactively setting a vision that clearly defines what current and future success looks like for all crew at ECS.
- Instill a continuous improvement mindset and foster a culture of ownership, accountability and excitement around scaling the business.
- Support and empower the ECS leadership team to exceed results for Safety, FSQA, Reliability, Service and Cost.
- Tracks key performance indicators/costs, anticipating and correcting trends which would compromise achievement of facility targets.
- Provides oversight and assures facility equipment reliability to minimize downtime.
- Promote strong, collaborative partnerships with key stakeholders across our organization.
- Use your expertise to drive the holistic production process to meet demand in a flexible and agile manner.
- Contribute to our vision of being a destination employer by hiring, developing, and retaining a high performing, agile team that will meet the needs of the business today and become future leaders tomorrow.
- Continuously evaluate team needs, business needs, anticipate problems and drive improvements to our processes and ways of working.
- Build people capability through effective management, development, and training of our crew to crew to cultivate a team-oriented, problem-solving culture.
- Partner with finance and business leaders to develop and manage our annual plant operating plan.
What You Bring to the Table:
- An analytical mindset, but also the ability to apply art with the science and bring others along through your ability to tell the story through data.
- You build an incredible culture and have a proven track record of success in building, managing, and leading a high performing team through meaningful coaching and engagement.
- A commitment to continually raising the standards by creating a culture of innovation and entrepreneurial risk taking.
- Experience using data analysis to drive positive team and business outcomes.
- 10+ years of progressive leadership experience in production, operations, or manufacturing, preferably in food or other regulated business
- 5+ years in Lean Operations management
- Experience with an ERP system, NetSuite, and Microsoft D365 experience is a plus.
- Ability to work a flexible schedule to meet the needs of a 24/7 production environment.
- Ability travel to, approximately up to 15% travel for meetings and training
- Ability to build strong collaborative relationships across departments and divisions supporting a team environment.
- Excellent time management skills with a sense of priority for deadlines and attention to detail.
- Computer proficiency in MS Office: Outlook, Excel, Word, and PowerPoint.
- You’re no hero – You know the power of teamwork and celebrate the work of others before your own.
- You give a sh*t – You believe in acting like an owner and making Vital Farms a place to be proud of.
- You raise the standards – You know growth can be hard, but you strive to improve yourself and others each day.
- You can walk in someone else’s boots – You seek to understand other’s viewpoints and think that you get to better answers by sitting on the same side of the table.
- You don’t walk on eggshells – You’re not afraid to leave the bullsh*t behind and have honest conversations.
