Vice President Operations

Role Overview

An established, privately owned industrial manufacturing business with more than $100M in revenue is growing quickly and is looking for a Vice President of Operations to work directly with the CEO. This is an opportunity for an experienced operations executive to strengthen discipline across the operation, expand scalable processes, and support growth while maintaining the company’s entrepreneurial mindset and customer-focused culture.

Ideal Professional Background

The preferred candidate is a senior operations leader from a custom-engineered industrial manufacturing organization with revenue between $100M and $500M. The role calls for someone who has brought together manufacturing, supply chain, S&OP, production planning, and inventory management into a scalable operating structure. Experience in environments such as high-mix, low-volume, make-to-order, engineer-to-order, configure-to-order, job shop, or similar customer-solution manufacturing models is highly desirable.

Areas You Will Lead

• Manufacturing operations
• Supply chain and procurement
• Production planning and scheduling
• Sales and operations planning (S&OP)
• Inventory and capacity planning
• Manufacturing engineering
• Quality and continuous improvement
• Safety and operational excellence

Measures of Success

In this position, you will create the operational foundation required to sustain growth while improving business performance across several key areas, including S&OP and integrated business planning, demand forecasting and capacity planning, inventory optimization, supplier performance, production scheduling and on-time delivery, ERP utilization and operational visibility, lean manufacturing and continuous improvement, and alignment between Operations, Sales, Customer Service, and Finance.

What the Role Demands

This leadership position requires a person who can think strategically while also staying close to day-to-day execution. You will need to develop strong teams, reinforce accountability, and ensure the organization can scale without losing responsiveness.

Candidate Profile

• 20+ years of progressive leadership experience in industrial manufacturing operations
• Background leading several functions, including manufacturing, supply chain, planning, engineering, and quality
• Strong command of S&OP, demand planning, capacity planning, production planning, and inventory management
• Track record of improving operations and creating scalable processes
• Hands-on experience with ERP systems and manufacturing technology
• Proven ability to build and develop high-performing operations teams

Preferred Industry Experience

The strongest fit will come from a custom-engineered, highly configurable, make-to-order, engineer-to-order, or customer-solution manufacturing environment where planning, supply chain coordination, inventory control, and agility are essential. Candidates whose backgrounds are limited to repetitive, high-volume manufacturing with relatively low operational complexity are less likely to succeed in this role.

Leadership Approach

The organization is seeking a leader who establishes trust before introducing change, values the experience of existing teams, adds structure without creating unnecessary bureaucracy, and leads with humility, urgency, accountability, and data-driven decision-making. Prior success scaling operations in respected and growing manufacturing businesses is important.

Additional Information

This is a full-time, onsite leadership role based in Greater Cleveland. The company is not in turnaround mode; instead, it is looking for an executive who can build on a solid platform and help the business advance to the next stage of growth.

If you have led complex industrial manufacturing operations, built strong planning and supply chain organizations, and enjoy helping entrepreneurial businesses grow, this role may be a strong match.