General Manager - Featherstone Manufacturing Site

About the Role

The General Manager position at Featherstone offers an exciting leadership opportunity at one of the UK’s premier packaging manufacturing operations. Featherstone boasts an annual production of over 200 million square metres of corrugated packaging and is considered among the top-performing sites within DS Smith's network. Grounded in a culture emphasizing operational excellence, outstanding customer service, and ongoing improvement, this site has a stellar reputation for delivering excellence to both customers and employees.

This role calls for a distinguished, people-centric leader to inspire and elevate an already successful operation, working alongside a seasoned site leadership team to boost safety, quality, customer satisfaction, and operational metrics.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide inspiring leadership focused on people, cultivating a culture of accountability, engagement, and high performance.
• Champion a world-class safety, health, and environmental culture, ensuring everyone returns home safely daily by prioritizing safety in all decisions.
• Enhance Featherstone’s reputation by advancing continuous improvements in safety, quality, service, and productivity.
• Lead, mentor, and develop both direct and indirect leadership team members while reinforcing talent succession and future capability building.
• Deliver superior customer service through excellent operational performance, quality output, and on-time, in-full (OTIF) delivery.
• Manage commercial performance by balancing customer requirements with operational efficiency and financial goals.
• Take full responsibility for site performance including budget adherence, profitability, productivity, and capital investments.
• Identify opportunities to improve operational efficiency, reduce waste, and contribute to sustainability objectives.
• Build strong collaborative relationships across business functions such as Commercial, Operations, Engineering, Supply Chain, and Support Teams to maximize business benefits.
• Foster an inclusive workplace where employees feel valued, heard, empowered, authentic, and proud of their work.

Candidate Profile

The ideal candidate is an experienced manufacturing leader who understands that operational excellence hinges on remarkable teams. You will be adept at motivating others, instilling accountability, and nurturing a safety-conscious, quality-driven, and customer-focused culture as habitual practice rather than a checkbox.

Comfortable both on the floor engaging directly with employees and in communicating business results to senior stakeholders, you possess the commercial insight and operational credibility to make balanced decisions supporting both client satisfaction and business success. Above all, you lead authentically, with humility and integrity.

Essential Qualifications and Experience

• Extensive senior leadership experience within manufacturing, packaging, FMCG, or a similarly fast-paced production environment.
• Proven capability to lead large, intricate manufacturing operations.
• Exemplary leadership skills with a background in developing engaged, high-performing teams.
• Demonstrable commitment to fostering a world-class safety culture.
• Strong operational leadership experience including continuous improvement and Lean Manufacturing practices.
• Proven success managing trade union relationships collaboratively and constructively.
• Commercially astute with strong financial skills in budget management, profitability assurance, and capital investment oversight.
• Customer-centric mindset focused on exceptional quality, service, and dependability.
• Collaborative leadership style, skilled in building trust at all organizational levels.
• Passion for people development and building an inclusive culture conducive to success for all employees.

Success Indicators

• Development of a motivated, engaged, and empowered workforce.
• An uncompromising safety culture that guides all decisions and actions.
• Top-tier customer satisfaction achieved through superior quality and reliable OTIF delivery.
• Continual gains in productivity, operational efficiency, and excellence.
• Robust commercial results matched with sustained profitability.
• A strong leadership team featuring clear succession and growth plans.
• Recognition of Featherstone as a leading, high-performing manufacturing site within the organization.

Benefits

• Competitive salary package.
• Qualifying Sick Pay scheme.
• Pension plan and life insurance coverage.
• Employee Share Save Scheme participation.
• Income protection benefits.
• 25 days annual leave plus bank holidays.
• Employee Assistance Programme for wellbeing support.
• Access to virtual GP, occupational health services, and free flu vaccination.
• Cycle to Work scheme and discounts on shopping.

About DS Smith

DS Smith is a leader in sustainable packaging innovation and operational excellence. Joining DS Smith means contributing to an innovative environment focused on sustainability and supporting an exceptional team dedicated to customer success.