Executive Director, Business Operations

A Career at HARMAN
As a technology leader that is rapidly on the move, HARMAN is filled with people who are focused on making life better. Innovation, inclusivity and teamwork are a part of our DNA. When you add that to the challenges we take on and solve together, you’ll discover that at HARMAN you can grow, make a difference and be proud of the work you do every day.

About the Role

The Executive Director, Business Operations is part of the global Supply Chain and Operations leadership team and responsible for directing and planning division strategy around factory footprint and localization activities (local for local, make or buy), executive leadership to support strategic growth & profitability expectations, utilization of human resources and assets. Key to this role is to transform the business to double digit profitable company and the team into a high performance and agile status to allow superior customer satisfaction. Furthermore, the cross functional alignment is key to success in this role.

The Executive Director, Business Operations is also responsible for transforming the business in a timely and profitable manner by motivating staff to optimize costs and increase revenues across all regions. Responsible areas in the world: North America, Mexico, Hungary, Brazil and China.

This is a critical global leadership role with a major impact on the overall performance of the business unit. It requires deep domain knowledge but more importantly requires outstanding influencing skills. The role is both long-term strategic and short-term execution oriented. The Business Operations Leader has ability to both zoom in and zoom out constantly while keeping laser sharp focus on quality, profitability/cost and feasibility. In addition, the successful implementation of the Trans4mer project is a major critical project for this role.

What You Will Do

• Achieve consensus for operational demand forecasts by facilitating a collaborative planning process with sales, marketing, and finance personnel.
• Set the strategic direction and roadmap for the HPS and AME groups worldwide and execute on critical projects. Ensure that the strategy is set and aligned to the R&D activities and technology rollouts as well as manufacturing strategy and requirements.
• Define and drive the global operations manufacturing strategy including outsourcing, site rationalization and capacity loading.
• Coordinate and work collaboratively with senior management team of manufacturing and quality to develop cost effective global manufacturing strategies and standards that are capable, responsive, flexible, efficient and yield high quality, reliable products.
• Manage all forecasting activities associated with make or buy decisions and direct the demand planning team to create and maintain forecast models for insourcing projects, incorporating business intelligence and forecast information gathered from multiple sources.
• Achieve consensus for operational demand forecasts by facilitating a collaborative planning process with sales, marketing and finance personnel.
• Ensure high level of forecast accuracy to ensure achievement of overall business objectives. Work with the Manufacturing team to translate site strategy into specific annual performance goals and departmental objectives including KPIs.
• Lead multiple decentralized teams ensuring appropriate functional expertise, establish a vision, and transition easily between strategy and the daily tactics of the business.
• Ensure vendor quality guidelines in coordination with Product Integrity, Sourcing, and Social Compliance for JDM and ODM projects
• Provide guidance and direction around management of external resources, contract manufacturers, suppliers and third-party logistics vendors as required to build and ship products. Lead contingency planning when availability issues are a possibility.
• Coordinate and work collaboratively across all stakeholders to ensure design for quality, design for manufacturing as well achieving business cases for all insourcing and NPI projects.
• Oversee and coordinate advanced developments in process, material and test technology and strategy.
• Provide effective and inspiring leadership in development on inter-team communication and cohesiveness, sustaining culture and supporting staff during organizational changes.

What You Need

• BA/BS Degree.
• 15 or more years of executive leadership and extensive experience in global complex industries with low-volume high mix and high-volume low mix setups within global manufacturing and supply chain. 
• 10+ years as a people manager with 5+ managing multi-national teams.
• Proven excellent written and oral communication and demonstrated human relation skills.
• Ability to influence and drive change, improving performance of work groups.
• Understanding of global best practices.
• Leadership skills that will enable the person to lead a global team across all time zones giving clear direction, measuring results, problem-solving and taking corrective actions.
• Strong ability to manage and prioritize multiple projects while maintaining accuracy and meeting deadlines; able to balance short-term, urgent needs with long-term strategic initiatives.
• Strong analytical, research, and negotiation skills.
• Willingness to work across multiple time zones when needed.

What is Nice to Have

• Degree in Business Management, Supply Chain Management or Engineering.
• Ability to read, analyze, and interpret technical journals, financial reports, and legal documents.
• Ability to respond to inquiries or complaints and to effectively present information to customers, dealers, distributors, sales representatives and senior management.
• Ability to calculate figures and amounts, such as discounts, interest, commissions, proportions, and percentages.

What Makes You Eligible

• Willingness to work in one of the HARMAN offices or from the home office as appropriate.
• Willingness to travel up to 50% of the time globally.
• Any offer of employment is conditioned upon the successful completion of a background investigation and drug screen.

#LI-Hybrid

$ 210,000 - $ 308,000

HARMAN is proud to be an Equal Opportunity / Affirmative Action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.