NA EXO Associate Director

WELLA – Associate Director External Operations (EXO) Leader, North America

Morris Plain, NJ, USA

ABOUT THE WELLA COMPANY

Together, WE enable individuals to look, feel, and be their true selves.

Wella Company is one of the world’s leading beauty companies, comprised of a family of iconic brands such as Wella Professionals, Clairol, OPI, Nioxin and ghd. With 6,000 employees globally, presence in over 100 countries, Wella Company and its brands enable consumers to look, feel, and be their true selves. As innovators in the hair and nail industry, Wella Company empowers its people to delight consumers, inspire beauty professionals, engage communities, and deliver sustainable growth to its stakeholders.

For additional information about the Wella Company please visit www.wellacompany.com.

ROLEThe Associate Director, External Operations (EXO) Leader drives the strategy for Wella Company’s North America Third-Party Manufacturing (TPM) network, supporting brands such as Wella Professionals, Nioxin, and OPI. This role ensures alignment between category business objectives and TPM goals, optimizing performance across Service, Quality, Cost, and Cash. Acting as a virtual plant manager, the AD EXO Leader fosters a quality-driven, cost-efficient, and agile external manufacturing network.

Additionally, as the Site Initiative Leader (SIL), this role leads a cross-functional manufacturing team, developing and executing initiative plans to drive market success. The SIL ensures Technical Readiness, Quality (Right First Time - RFT), Cost, and Feasibility assessments while leveraging initiative systems expertise to optimize quality, cost, cash, timing, and complexity for new initiatives

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Strategic Leadership & Stakeholder Management

• Develop and execute the North America TPM strategy, ensuring alignment with business growth objectives.
• Serve as a key member of the External Operations Lead Team, ensuring company and category OGSM (Objectives, Goals, Strategies, and Measures) are met.
• Influence category leadership by aligning third-party manufacturing strategies with business objectives and fostering cross-functional partnerships.

Operational Excellence & Supply Network Design

• Enhance TPM efficiency across supply chain, quality, cost, and cash, ensuring agility and responsiveness.
• Lead category-specific Supply Network Design (SND) initiatives, including TPM qualification protocols, integration design for non-standard setups, and E2E SND mapping & reporting.
• Provide supply recommendations to enhance service resilience, in collaboration with Direct Procurement strategies.

Supply Chain & TPM Management

• Oversee new supply chain setups, ensuring smooth transitions and alignment with External Operations and category goals.
• Co-lead TPM Master-Planning and TPM Reduction Strategy with Procurement to optimize the external manufacturing footprint.
• Monitor TPM performance, driving operational efficiency, compliance, and continuous capability development.

Cost, Savings, & Continuous Improvement

• Lead cost-saving initiatives within External Operations, ensuring alignment with financial targets.
• Drive loss analysis and implement projects to achieve savings while maintaining a future cost-saving pipeline.
• Ensure accurate and timely responses to Cost & Feasibility (C&F) requests in collaboration with Procurement, Planning, and Quality.

Risk Management & Business Continuity

• Own company-wide Business Continuity Planning (BCP), ensuring robust contingency strategies.
• Resolve escalated operational challenges swiftly, maintaining category alignment.

Innovation Leadership & Technical Readiness

• Develop and lead the end-to-end supply chain readiness plan.
• Coordinate and lead Project Kick-off meetings and key TPM touchpoints, including experimental runs, downtime planning, and line trials.
• Oversee technical readiness by ensuring all necessary system setups are completed across TPM sites and planning hubs (e.g., SAP, local systems).
• Lead regular TPM Technical & Supply Chain Readiness meetings, collaborating with cross-functional teams including Operations, R&D, Engineering, Planning, Finance, and Initiative Leaders.
• Escalate and frame risks effectively, engaging Initiative & Planning Leadership to drive resolution.
• Own TPM site action plans, resolving supply chain issues and synchronizing with project timelines.
• Collaborate with Planning teams to manage PIPO, demand variability, potential shortages, and contingency planning.
• Maintain a local TPM tracker and Innovation Scorecard, ensuring transparency and accountability across all projects.
• Transition projects seamlessly from Global Initiative Leaders (GILs), ensuring readiness before handover to TPM execution.

Core Areas of Accountability

• Service:Ensure effective TPM execution of production plans with agility and responsiveness, taking ownership of critical issue mitigation as needed to maintain service continuity.
• Cost:Drive TPM operating results, optimizing cost per unit through thorough loss analysis and the implementation of targeted savings initiatives, ensuring cost-effective operations.
• Operating Strategy:Maintain and execute documented TPM Operating Strategies, ensuring alignment with broader business objectives and operational goals.
• Initiatives:
  • Lead TPM Initiative Execution, acting as the primary liaison with the Global Initiative Leader (GIL).
  • Ensure initiative success, focusing on On Time and In Full (OTIF) delivery, Technical Readiness, ICW (In-Country Warehouse) timing, and quality measures at launch, while addressing any gaps.
  • Conduct cost and feasibility assessments at each project gate.
  • Ensure strict adherence to gate timelines and project start-up, coordinating activity calendars with project complexity aligned to standard CPS.
• Quality:Support and drive TPM quality performance, engaging in proactive planning, discussions, and escalation management to address any quality-related issues promptly.
• Cash:Improve agility in lead times, minimum order quantities (MOQs), and raw material/packaging management. Oversee the reporting and resolution of off-book liabilities to ensure financial accuracy.
• Internal Controls & Business Continuity (BCP):Ensure TPM compliance with internal controls, maintaining up-to-date action plans and overseeing the Business Continuity Planning (BCP) programs to ensure resilience and operational continuity.
• TPM Scorecard:Manage TPM operational performance as measured by the TPM Supply Chain Scorecard, ensuring consistent and measurable success across all areas.
• Supply Chain Startups & Exits:Oversee TPM onboarding and exit processes, ensuring seamless transitions for new suppliers and the effective wind-down of relationships with exiting suppliers.

This position reports to the Americas Manufacturing Operations Director and plays a vital role in shaping Wella’s external manufacturing landscape.

QUALIFICATIONS

You thrive at building strong customer relationships and delivering customer-centric solutions. You are committed, conscientious and always lead with integrity. You recognize the value that different perspectives and cultures bring to an organization. You believe in the value of teamwork. You bring a high level of knowledge and know-how plus creativity and enthusiasm to your work and to everything you do.

Key requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering or business (preferred).
• 10 years of relevant experience in Supply Chain and/or Manufacturing.
• Strong negotiation skills and a deep understanding of end-to-end Supply Chain operations.
• Excellent analytical skills, including cost breakdown analysis, spend and volume trends, market insights, and supplier capability assessments.
• Proficient in IT tools such as Excel, PowerPoint, and SAP.
• Proven experience in complex supply chain and project management.
• Ability to engage and influence stakeholders across functions (Project teams, Procurement, Planning, Operations), including senior leadership.
• Strong understanding of key cost drivers for raw materials and packaging categories.
• Effective communicator, self-driven, and highly autonomous.
• Skilled in data analysis, extracting insights from multiple sources to develop strategic, data-driven supply chain recommendations.

We disclose the compensation range for positions in compliance with local law. Actual salaries will vary and may be above or below the range based on various factors including but not limited to location, experience, skills and in comparison to internal incumbents currently in similar roles. Pay Range: $121,500 - $150,000 salary per year. The range listed is just one component of Wella Company's total rewards package for employees. Other rewards may include annual bonus plan or variable pay, depending on the role. In addition, Wella Company provides a rich variety of benefits to employees, including health insurance, life and disability insurance, 401(k) retirement plan, paid holidays and paid time off (PTO).

NOTICES 

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, national origin, disability, veteran status, or other legally protected status.

If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, please email NA.Recruiting@wella.com. This email account will not respond to inquiries regarding the status of a candidate’s application.

[For CA located postings ONLY]: Qualified Applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers and the California Fair Chance Act.

Information regarding your rights: Know Your Rights and Pay Transparency Nondiscrimination Provision.