- Own and drive a disciplined, region-wide Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) process, ensuring alignment across demand, supply, inventory, and capacity planning.
- Identify, prioritize, and lead continuous improvement initiatives across forecasting accuracy, production scheduling, inventory optimization, and supplier supply planning.
- Lead the exceptions management process, proactively identifying risks, gaps, and constraints, and enabling timely, fact-based trade-off decisions with key stakeholders.
- Structure, facilitate, and lead regional S&OP governance and review meetings, ensuring strong process discipline, accountability, and compliance.
- Establish, monitor and track key operational performance indicators (KPIs) including inventory health, service levels, forecast accuracy, and supply reliability.
- Drive actions to identify, reduce, and eliminate excess and obsolete (E&O) inventory, improving working capital efficiency.
- Champion and model Gates’ core values, continuous improvement mindset, and operational excellence culture across the region.
- Requires a comprehensive understanding of internal and industry standards and principles
Lead S&OP Team
Requirements And Preferred Skills
- Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, Industrial Engineering, Supply Chain, or related discipline, with a minimum of 10 years of progressive experience in operations, engineering, or supply chain leadership, including direct ownership of S&OP.
- Master’s degree preferred.
- Experience in automotive or complex manufacturing systems is highly desirable.
- Strong hands-on experience in Lean Manufacturing, continuous improvement, and operational excellence methodologies.
- Demonstrated project and program management expertise, including cross-functional coordination, communication, execution, governance, and post-implementation review.
- Deep knowledge of Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, statistical analysis, and structured problem-solving methodologies.
- Strong analytical and systems-thinking capabilities, with the ability to translate data into actionable business decisions.
- Highly results-oriented, with a track record of driving measurable business improvements and scalable process solutions.
- Proven ability to influence, coach, and align stakeholders across multiple organizational levels, functions, and geographies.
- Excellent executive-level communication, presentation, and facilitation skills, both verbal and written.
- Strong change leadership skills with the ability to drive adoption of new processes, systems, and behaviors.
About the company
Company website•Automation Machinery Manufacturing
We are a leading manufacturer of application-specific fluid power and power transmission solutions. At Gates, we are driven to push the boundaries of materials science to engineer products that continually exceed expectations.
We don’t rest on our rich heritage of innovation. We leverage it to inspire solutions that will power the next hundred years. We invest continually in R&D and technology, so our products not only outperform industry standards; they exceed our customers’ demanding expectations. We invest in our people, bringing real-world experience that enables us to solve our customers’ diverse challenges of today and anticipate those of tomorrow. And we are constantly expanding our product catalog and value-added service offerings to support every facet of our customers’ operations. In the most extreme environments and those more familiar, Gates is there with the right product, in the right place at the right time. Whether building original equipment or maintaining products in the aftermarket, we enable companies in every industry to be more efficient, productive, and profitable. We are Gates.