VP, Continuous Improvement

Job Summary

The Vice President of Continuous Improvement (CI) will lead Southwire's enterprise-wide CI strategy, embedding a culture of operational excellence, continuous improvement execution, and sustainable performance improvement. This role aligns CI initiatives with Southwire's strategic goals to drive measurable impact across safety, quality, customer service, and cost efficiency.  As a highly experienced leader with advanced analytical capability and a deep understanding of business systems, this individual will develop, guide, and sustain a continuous improvement program that becomes an organizational habit rather than a one-time initiative. Through mentoring and governance, they will create self-sustaining systems where every team member contributes to eliminating waste, reducing variation, and enhancing customer value.

Collaborating across Commercial, Operations, Product Management, and other functional areas, the VP will leverage CI methodology to transform operations, build long-term capability, and ensure initiatives deliver measurable business results. With a proven track record of driving change and operational excellence, this leader will champion the vision for CI and embed its mindset and philosophy throughout all business processes.

Key Responsibilities

• Enterprise Continuous Improvement Strategy: Develop and execute a comprehensive CI strategy aligned with Southwire's strategic goals, cascading through all levels of organization. Help select high-impact projects, prioritize resources, and ensure alignment between improvement efforts and business outcomes.
• CI Deployment & Execution: Tailor materials to fit organizational context and ensure that CI learning translates into measurable improvements.
• Cost-Out Strategy: Validate financial benefits and ensure compliance with methodology standards.  Serve as custodian of quality within the improvement framework.
• Performance Management: Define and track KPIs to measure the effectiveness of CI initiatives. Drive accountability for results and ensure alignment with Southwire’s strategic pillars.
• Capability Building: Provide technical guidance, review project progress and help practitioners apply the right tools for the right problems. Goal is to develop future leaders in process excellence.
• Cultural Transformation: Play a key role in building a culture of continuous improvement - promoting collaboration, problem solving, and data-driven decision making at every level.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with Business, Functional and Operations leaders to integrate CI into all business processes and leadership behaviors.
• Change Management: Serve as a catalyst for change, helping teams navigate transformation with clarity, consistency, and purpose. Support the evolution of supervisory roles to align with modern leadership expectations.
• External Benchmarking: Establish and maintain a robust external benchmarking program to identify best-in-class practices across industries. Translate insights into actionable strategies that elevate Southwire’s performance and competitiveness.
• Create and lead a culture that continually looks for operational and business improvements, optimizes work processes to gain efficiency, sets goals and achieves cost efficiency measures, and regularly conducts root cause analysis and process improvement for key quality and systemic operational issues.

Required Education & Experience

Bachelor's Degree

Years of Experience: 15+ Years

Field(s) of Expertise:

Wire and Cable, Heavy Industrial with continuous processes, Electrical Industry 

Preferred Education & Experience

Master's Degree

Certificates/Licenses:

• Six Sigma Black Belt, Lean Certification, Continuous Improvement Methodologies or similar

Spans of Control

Does this role manage Southwire Team Members: Yes

Number of Direct Reports: 2-5

Travel

Domestic - up to 50% of time

Physical Requirements

• Carrying/Lifting - 5% of time (Weight 45)
• Climbing - 5% of time
• Crawling - 5% of time
• Kneeling/Stooping - 5% of time
• Driving - 5% of time
• Moving - 5% of time
• Standing - 5% of time
• Sitting - 50% of time
• Walking - 10% of time
• Pushing/Pulling - 5% of time (Weight 45)

Working Conditions

• Office
• Plant/Warehouse Floor
• Various Shifts
• Overtime, Weekends, Holidays
• Extreme Heat/Cold
• Heights/Elevated Platforms 

Equipment

• Computer/Keyboard
• Safety Glasses
• Safety Shoes

Competencies

Skills