Director, EU/APAC Manufacturing

About the Role The Director, EU/APAC Manufacturing is a strategic on-site leadership role responsible for the performance of multiple manufacturing sites across Europe and Asia. This leader ensures safety, quality, delivery, cost, and people objectives while deploying the Danaher Business System (DBS) to translate global strategy into disciplined site-level execution across Marseille, Aachen, Suzhou, and Bangalore. The position reports to the Vice President Global Operations & Supply Chain and is part of the Global Operations leadership team. What You'll Do

• Own the EU/APAC manufacturing performance across all sites, delivering results across Safety, Quality, Delivery, Inventory, Productivity, and Cost (SQDIP).
• Ensure manufacturing capacity, labor, and capability are aligned with business growth plans and customer demand.
• Drive disciplined execution through DBS: Daily Management, Visual Management, Standard Work, Dynamic KANBAN, IMAG, Heijunka Scheduling, structured problem solving, and Kaizen.
• Build a sustainable culture of continuous improvement, accountability, and data‑driven decision‑making across all sites.
• Build, coach, and develop high‑performing plant and regional leadership teams. Lead succession planning and talent pipelines for critical manufacturing roles.
• Foster an inclusive, safe, and engaged culture with strong ownership and accountability at all levels.
• Partner with Engineering, R&D, Product Management, Quality, and Commercial teams on new product introductions, transfers, and lifecycle management.
• Ensure manufacturing input into design‑for‑manufacturability, cost reduction, and innovation initiatives.
• Coordinate with the Global Quality requirements to operate aligned with FDA, ISO13485, and Customer Audits to achieve total customer satisfaction.
• Lead the operations team to ensure a culture of Quality continuous improvement and strong executional discipline to quality expectations.
• Own the regional manufacturing supply response within the Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) process. Partner with Commercial and Supply Chain teams to translate demand signals into executable production, staffing, and inventory plans.
• Identify and mitigate supply risk, improve service levels, and optimize inventory performance. What We're Looking For
• B.S. with minimum 12+ years’ experience in manufacturing (aerospace, medical devices, life sciences, biotechnology, or similar) with 8+ in Operations and/or Supply Chain leadership roles; MBA preferred.
• 3+ years’ experience leading multicultural operations teams across Asia and Europe.
• Extensive manufacturing leadership experience within complex, multi-site, global operations, preferably in regulated or high‑reliability environments.
• Experience building high performing teams and managing a plant or manufacturing site and leading manufacturing value streams in a high‑mix, low‑volume environment; multi-site leadership experience preferred.
• Expertise with management to drive change management in a fast‑moving business.
• Proven commitment to continuous improvement tools such as Lean Manufacturing.
• Ability to think strategically, identify key business issues, and formulate strategic options.
• Proven analytical skills, modelling, and experience of producing and presenting business cases for strategic development.
• Strong global business knowledge and influence; ability to lead, follow, work and influence at all levels and functions.
• Affinity to go to Gemba and lead by example; ability to influence decision making with or without authority, facilitate groups with varied perspectives, and bring teams to agreement.
• High tolerance for ambiguity and demonstrated success in a highly matrixed organization.
• Experience building productive relationships and influencing others across the organization; strong listening skills and ability to present complex insights clearly. Nice to Have
• Experience in life sciences, diagnostics, medical devices, or high‑mix/low‑volume manufacturing.
• Exposure to automation.