West Midlands | Tier 1 Automotive Supplier | Executive Leadership Opportunity

Are you a senior quality and operational excellence leader looking for an opportunity to shape business performance at a strategic level?

Our client, a well-established and highly respected Tier 1 automotive supplier, is seeking to appoint a Senior Quality Director to play a pivotal role in driving quality, continuous improvement and operational transformation across their UK operations.

This is a high-profile leadership position, offering significant influence across the organisation and the opportunity to work closely with the executive team to define and deliver the future quality and operational excellence strategy.

The Opportunity

As Senior Quality Director, you will be responsible for leading the quality function whilst championing a culture of continuous improvement, operational excellence and customer satisfaction.

Working across manufacturing and business operations, you will drive the deployment of Total Quality Management (TQM) principles and leverage Time-Based Maintenance (TBM) methodologies to improve equipment reliability, reduce downtime, enhance operational performance and deliver sustainable business improvements.

This role will suit a commercially aware leader who is as comfortable influencing board-level stakeholders as they are engaging with operational teams to deliver meaningful change.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and lead the company's quality and operational excellence strategy.
• Drive a culture of continuous improvement throughout the organisation.
• Embed and strengthen TQM principles across manufacturing and business processes.
• Champion Time-Based Maintenance initiatives to improve equipment reliability, asset performance and operational efficiency.
• Lead quality performance improvement programmes across multiple sites and functions.
• Strengthen customer relationships through the delivery of world-class quality standards.
• Ensure compliance with relevant automotive quality systems and customer-specific requirements.
• Partner with manufacturing, engineering, maintenance, operations and commercial teams to deliver strategic business objectives.
• Develop, mentor and inspire high-performing quality and operational excellence teams.
• Support the wider business transformation agenda through data-driven problem solving and change leadership.

The Person

We are keen to speak with accomplished leaders who can demonstrate:

• Extensive senior leadership experience within automotive manufacturing.
• A background within a Tier 1 supplier environment, ideally with direct OEM exposure.
• Strong understanding and practical application of Total Quality Management (TQM) principles.
• Experience implementing or working within Time-Based Maintenance (TBM) frameworks and reliability improvement programmes.
• Proven success delivering operational excellence and continuous improvement initiatives.
• A track record of leading cultural change and business transformation.
• Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills across all organisational levels.
• Excellent leadership, coaching and team development capabilities.
• Degree qualified in an engineering, manufacturing or related discipline (preferred).

At Gleeson Recruitment Group, we embrace inclusivity and welcome applicants of all backgrounds, experiences, and abilities. We are proud to be a disability confident employer.

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