Senior Director, Operations Excellence New Chicago, IL

Founded in 2013, Home Chef is the leading meal solutions company with both a retail and online presence. Available online at homechef.com and in retail at more than 2,100 Kroger grocery stores, Home Chef is committed to inspiring and enabling more people to cook simple, delicious meals, no matter how busy they are.

In 2023, Home Chef introduced a new brand, Tempo! Tempo features a rotating selection of ready-to-heat meals delivered directly to your door. These meals are better-for-you versions of familiar favorites, designed to save you time and reduce stress while maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Our Tempo menu includes options that are protein-packed, fiber-rich, calorie and carb conscious, keto-friendly, and dietitian-approved.

Sometimes referred to as Home Chef’s operations “SWAT” team, the Ops Ex team works on cross-functional initiatives that help to define the future state of the operations organization. The team prides themselves on being great problem solvers, thought partners, and go-getters. Projects evolve based on the needs of the business – no two days are the same – but the team is always focused on execution and driving towards positive impact. The Ops Ex team is a key partner to the fulfillment team, driving continuous improvement initiatives, creating and maintaining technologically-driven tools to enable more efficient processes, and serving as the operations organization’s center for strategy development and implementation.

The Senior Director of Operations Excellence leads the team, which comprises Engineering, Continuous Improvement, and Digital SWAT (Analytics and Planning). The Senior Director is responsible for setting the priorities and expectations of the team, delivering strategic recommendations, and acting as a key subject matter expert and partner to fulfillment and cross-functional leadership teams.

Detailed Responsibilities

Team Management

• Run regular and ad-hoc meetings, maintaining close regular contact with all team members.
• Maintain morale and a healthy, productive working culture.
• Professional development of all team members.
• Align team structure with business priorities and recruit high-caliber individuals to join the team.
• Coach leaders of Warehouse Excellence, Operations Excellence, and National Continuous Improvement on hiring, professional development, and performance management of their team members.

Setting strategic priorities

• Develop strategic priorities for the team in line with the company and operations team’s overall strategic priorities.
• Provide coaching on reporting and analytics, and increase cross-functional understanding of KPIs.
• Scope and oversee delivery of operations strategy recommendations.
• Help team to structure project work and deliver clear, data-driven recommendations.
• Drive project work from strategy to project recommendation to implementation with the fulfillment teams.

Partnering with fulfillment teams

• Develop and sustain strong collaborative partnership with fulfillment teams across 3 facilities.
• Take requests and recommendations from fulfillment teams for projects to add to pipeline.
• Work closely with CI managers to develop and implement continuous improvement initiatives.
• Ensure team has culture of being at the forefront of supporting the work of the fulfillment teams.
• Develop deep subject matter expertise on Home Chef’s operations, processes, and operations technology.
• Participate in cross-functional projects, such as new product development, to help guide decision making related to operational capabilities.
• Act as most senior operations excellence partner on cross-functional projects with HR, technology, marketing, and product departments.

This position requires 25% travel.

Qualifications

The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability needed for this role. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities.

• 4+ years of experience in an operations excellence, strategic, continuous improvement, or process engineering role.
• 4+ years of people management experience, ideally with experience of managing managers.
• Strong business acumen; consulting and/or MBA background an advantage.
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience required, engineering or operations disciplines preferred.
• Excellent analytical skills.
• Strong prioritization and project management skills.
• Excellent communication skills, with experience creating buy in with a range of stakeholders such as hourly employees, customers, suppliers, cross-functional partners, and executives.
• Proactive in identifying problems and finding innovative solutions.
• Ability to understand the big picture as well as exceptional attention to detail.
• Skilled at dealing with ambiguity and working in a fast-paced environment.
• Experience spearheading execution on large-scale, high-impact projects.
• Experience in a fast-paced, high-growth environment.
• Travel (up to 25%) will be required as part of this position.

More About Us

Perks and Benefits

• Medical, dental, vision, life and disability insurance available.
• Paid holidays, sick time and vacation time.
• 401k program.
• Flexible spending accounts for qualified medical, dependent care, parking, or transit expenses.

How We Work Together

We are humble team players.
We are warm and gracious with team members and customers. We seek feedback to improve ourselves - and respectfully listen to and accept input.

We are pragmatic next-level thinkers.
We come up with novel and unique ideas. We explore new strategies to avoid being constrained by conventional thinking.

We take ownership.
We approach ambiguous problems, prepared to dive in, get curious, and learn more. We are results-driven, always challenging ourselves to exceed goals.

We all show up authentically at Home Chef. Our team includes individuals with a variety of identities, backgrounds, and perspectives. You can trust that you’ll be able to bring your whole self to an inclusive and enjoyable workplace.

Home Chef is committed to the full inclusion of all qualified individuals. As part of this commitment, Home Chef will ensure that persons with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodations. If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, or to receive other benefits and privileges of employment, please contact our People team at hr@homechef.com.