Director Manufacturing, EU/APAC

Director, EU/APAC Manufacturing

The Director, EU/APAC Manufacturing is accountable for the strategic and operational performance of multiple manufacturing sites across Marseille (France), Aachen (Germany), Suzhou (China), and Bangalore (India). This leader ensures consistent delivery against safety, quality, delivery, cost, and people objectives while deploying the Danaher Business System (DBS) to translate global strategy into disciplined execution at the site and value-stream level.

In this role, you will have the opportunity to:

• Own the EU/APAC manufacturing performance across all sites, delivering results across Safety, Quality, Delivery, Inventory, Productivity, and Cost (SQDIP).
• Ensure manufacturing capacity, labor, and capability are aligned with business growth plans and customer demand.
• Drive disciplined execution through DBS; Daily Management, Visual Management, Standard Work, Dynamic KANBAN, IMAG, Heijunka Scheduling, structured problem solving, and Kaizen. Build a sustainable culture of continuous improvement, accountability, and data‑driven decision‑making across all sites.
• Build, coach, and develop high‑performing plant and regional leadership teams. Lead succession planning and talent pipelines for critical manufacturing roles. Foster an inclusive, safe, and engaged culture with strong ownership and accountability at all levels.
• Partner with Engineering, R&D, Product Management, Quality, and Commercial teams on new product introductions, transfers, and lifecycle management. Ensure manufacturing input into design‑for‑manufacturability, cost reduction, and innovation initiatives.
• Coordinate with the Global Quality requirements to operate aligned with FDA, ISO13485, and Customer Audits to achieve total customer satisfaction. Lead the operations team to ensure a culture of Quality continuous improvement and strong executional discipline to quality expectations.
• Own the regional manufacturing supply response within the Sales & Operations Planning (SOP) process. Partner with Commercial and Supply Chain teams to translate demand signals into executable production, staffing, and inventory plans. Identify and mitigate supply risk, improve service levels, and optimize inventory performance.

The essential requirements of the job include:

• B.S. with a minimum of 12+ years’ experience in manufacturing (aerospace, medical devices, life sciences, biotechnology, or similar) with 8+ years in Operations and/or Supply Chain leadership roles. MBA preferred. 3+ years’ experience leading multicultural operations teams across Asia and Europe.
• Extensive manufacturing leadership experience within complex, multi‑site, global operations, preferably in regulated or high‑reliability environments.
• Experience with building high-performing teams and managing a plant or manufacturing site and leading manufacturing value streams in a high mix, low volume environment, preferably multi‑site leadership experience.
• Expertise with management to drive change management in a fast‑moving business.
• Commitment and success demonstrated in continuous improvement tools such as Lean Manufacturing.
• Proven analytical skills, modelling, and experience of producing and presenting business cases for strategic development.
• Strong global business knowledge and influence – understand different cultures and approaches and can lead, follow, work and influence at all levels and in all functions of the organization.
• Affinity to go to Gemba and lead by example; ability to influence decision making with or without authority, facilitate groups with varied perspectives and bring teams to agreement. High tolerance for ambiguity and demonstrated success working in a highly matrixed organization.
• Experience building productive relationships and influencing others, both within the business and across organizations. Ability to interact with all levels, extraordinarily good listening skills, able to present complex or new insights with clarity and simplicity.

Preferred Requirements

• Experience in life sciences, diagnostics, medical devices, or high‑mix/low‑volume manufacturing.
• Exposure to automation, digital manufacturing, MES/OEE systems, or Industry 4.0 initiatives.
• Formal training or certification in DBS, Lean, Six Sigma, or similar continuous improvement methodologies.
• Aspirations to grow & develop into L1 VP Operations role.

Travel, Motor Vehicle Record & Physical/Environment Requirements:

• Ability to travel – up to 40% both domestic & international.

Beckman Coulter Life Sciences offers a broad array of comprehensive, competitive benefit programs that add value to employees’ lives. For more information, visit