Senior Vice President of Warehouse Operations

RHH202318

Food Wholesale Distribution

THE COMPANY

For over 60 years our client has been operating within the food wholesale and distribution industry as a sales driven organization with a true passion for serving their customers. With a wide selection of food categories and products, they have grown to service over 14,000 customers with over 20,000 SKU’s, in 32 states.

THE OPPORTUNITY

Headquartered in Southeastern, Michigan, our client seeks an experienced and innovative leader that will play an integral part in the rapid growth of the company. This newly created position will be a critical focal point to create continuous improvement to the bottom line. The Senior Vice President of Warehouse Operations will oversee the leadership and ultimate day-to-day operations of multiple warehouse facilities and will be responsible for taking a hands-on role in implementing, optimizing, and standardizing operating processes across the system. The successful candidate must be an innovative and solutions-based thinker, who can back up their work with analytics, and have experience handling a high volume of SKUs with significant turnover. This is a family-based culture, with a strong emphasis on hard work, productivity, communication, and integrity. Candidates must be a take-charge, high-energy leader who thrives in a fast-paced environment and capable of creating and managing operational processes and teams to ensure this organization’s continued success and growth.

This position reports to the President & Chief Operations Officer with five (5) direct reports

JOB DEFINITION

The company is seeking a proactive leader with an “own-it mentality” that will play an integral part in the continuous improvement, optimization, and cost management of inventory and warehouse systems. The ideal candidate will be highly strategic, and relationship driven, with experience managing a complex high-volume warehouse distribution facility. The SVP will be passionate about coaching, and training a high performing team, and effective at setting, evaluating and inspiring individual and team goals that develop people and promote an engaged culture. The successful candidate will have a sense of urgency to operations management and will be highly organized, with a strong work ethic. This role will work closely with the SVP of Transportation.

SKILLS

This position will bring a strong voice into the company working closely with the Executive Leadership and Management Team to establish long-range goals, tactical operating objectives, and optimization strategies.

Strategic Planning:

Collaborate with other leaders to develop and implement long-term strategic plans to achieve company goals and objectives.
Create innovative but adaptable strategies to support process improvement and consistency to a growing number of facilities.
Create a clear plan and training program within the warehouse operations teams to develop talent.
Identify analytic trends and opportunities to create greater cost management and efficiency.

Tactical Management:

Optimize operations to maximize inventory efficiency, profitability, and customer satisfaction.
Oversee warehouse operations and manage a team of operations leaders across various locations.
Establish, implement, and monitor standardized operational processes, procedures, and policies.
Ensure all locations maintain equipment quality, and safety standards and adhere to regulations and standard operating procedures.
Work closely with HR to develop workforce plans and optimize scheduling.
Work closely with Transportation team to maintain on time performance and alignment.

Performance Management and Reporting:

Develop and monitor KPIs and provide regular reports to the leadership team.
Partnered with the President, help to create and drive a culture of change, accountability, identifying areas of improvement, and develop action plans.
Translate data into usable and presentable information.
Ensure a data-driven approach to decision-making and continuous improvement.

Inventory Management:

Oversee the management of inventory consisting of over 20,000 multi-temperature controlled SKUs
Put standards and controls in place; Implement efficiency strategies to support inventory control and tracking.
Collaborate with the procurement team to optimize vendor relationships and the supply chain.

Leadership and Management:

Must have a strong strategic capacity and be creative about future needs of the business.
High energy and ambitious leader who foster’s a customer-centric culture within the organization.
Own it mentality; Autonomy to lead warehouse operations and own the strategy behind the evolving network.
Be dynamic with teams relating to all levels within the organization and establish a floor presence. Must be willing to roll up their sleeves and be involved with all sites, and be strategic and confident in potential Board meetings.
Improve succession planning across all departments. Lead and inspire a team, providing guidance, coaching, and mentoring to drive high performance and employee/talent development.
Monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) and dashboard/metrics to monitor performance, analyze data, and provide insights to inform decision-making and continuous improvement efforts.
Collaborate with cross-functional teams to identify service improvement opportunities, develop action plans, and drive initiatives to enhance the overall customer experience.
Drive a culture of continuous improvement, encouraging feedback, and implementing process enhancements to streamline service operations and maximize efficiency.
Partner and maintain effective communications internally and externally to solve problems in an effective manner. Stay abreast of industry trends, best practices, and emerging technologies, and recommend innovative solutions to enhance service delivery.

BACKGROUND EXPERIENCE

10 years of warehouse, distribution, and inventory management experience.
Experience assessing/building/creating a top performing team and instilling a culture of accountability, results, and flexibility in order to meet/exceed customer fulfillment and cost expectations.
Financial acumen; P&L or Cost Center responsibility.
Hands-On servant leadership style is a must. Entrepreneurial flair, passion for business and thrive in an action-packed growth fueled atmosphere of success. Overachiever who is dedicated, passionate, organized and willing to get the job done at any cost and adaptable to a well-developed team.
Understanding of multiple temperature controlled warehouse is a plus.
Experience with mergers and acquisitions, multi-site locations and family business is not required but is a plus.
Strong background leveraging supply chain and inventory management methods and tools.
Proven creative problem-solving skills with a drive to create “solutions”. Strongly demonstrated leadership and communication skills involving employees, customers, peers and suppliers. Demonstrated analytical, written communication and organizational skills. Proven ability to effectively prioritize workload and manage changes in direction and priority.
Get-it-done mentality with the ability to address tactical issues with both practical near-term and longer-term strategic solutions.
Proven ability to build buy-in with multiple stakeholders with potential conflicting priorities. Up to 25% travel.

Education:

Bachelor’s Degree is required, preferably in Supply Chain Management, Logistics, Business or Administration.

All inquiries should be emailed to:

nicole@hohauser.com

If you have these qualifications and are looking for a challenging career, please submit your Resume using the button below.