General Manager – Advanced Materials Platform
Industrial, Aerospace and Automotive End Markets / South West / Midlands / Business Stabilisation and Performance Reset.
Directorbank has been retained to appoint a P&L Leader for a globally established manufacturer of specialised materials supporting complex industrial, aerospace and automotive applications. Following a period of operational pressure and changing market dynamics, the business is entering a decisive phase focused on restoring execution discipline, improving financial outcomes and reinforcing its competitive position across key customer segments. The successful candidate will be responsible for driving a structured performance reset while building the foundations for long term, sustainable growth. This is a senior leadership mandate with full accountability for site performance, requiring an individual capable of delivering operational clarity, strengthening organisational capability and re-establishing credibility with both customers and internal stakeholders.
Role Summary:
The General Manager will lead the entire manufacturing operation, holding ultimate responsibility for operational effectiveness, financial delivery, customer fulfilment, and workforce performance. Reporting to group leadership, the role demands a pragmatic, action oriented leader who can quickly diagnose performance gaps, prioritise improvement initiatives and mobilise teams to deliver measurable results. A core expectation will be to reintroduce consistency in operational output while embedding governance structures and performance disciplines that support future scalability.
Key Areas of Responsibility
- Reinforcement of health, safety and regulatory compliance standards consistent with highly controlled manufacturing environments.
- Full commercial and operational leadership of a complex manufacturing facility
- Ownership of a structured recovery programme designed to address operational inefficiencies, margin erosion and customer delivery challenges.
- Strengthening of the site leadership framework through clear accountability, defined performance metrics and effective decision making processes.
- Implementation of improvement initiatives targeting productivity uplift, waste elimination and process reliability.
- Rebuilding confidence among strategic customers through dependable execution and transparent performance communication.
- Evaluation of manufacturing capacity, technology utilisation and capital deployment to support medium term business objectives.
- Driving workforce engagement and leadership development to improve organisational cohesion and performance culture.
- Establishment of disciplined financial oversight and performance monitoring across all operational functions.
- Acting as the principal executive representative for the site in interactions with group leadership, customers and external stakeholders.
Operational Duties
- Restore predictability in day to day production performance across safety, quality, delivery and cost parameters.
- Introduce structured methodologies for operational excellence, continuous improvement and root cause resolution.
- Improve coordination between production planning, materials management and shop floor execution.
- Work closely with engineering and technical teams to ensure sustained asset performance and operational resilience.
- Define and execute targeted capital expenditure programmes aligned to operational improvement and customer programme demands.
- Embed a proactive quality mindset focused on defect prevention and regulatory compliance.
- Achieve sustained improvement in delivery reliability and overall customer experience.
- Develop operational systems and processes capable of supporting increased complexity and growth across multiple end markets.
Experience and Qualifications
- Degree level education in Technical / Engineering Discipline.
- Demonstrable experience leading performance recovery or operational improvement initiatives within advanced manufacturing environments.
- Background in sectors such as aerospace, automotive or industrial components production.
- Proven capability managing large scale manufacturing workforces, including technically specialised teams.
- Strong commercial judgement with experience operating in competitive, customer led markets.
- Leadership approach combining decisive execution with the ability to influence cultural and organisational change.
- This position offers the opportunity to lead the revitalisation of a strategically important advanced materials manufacturing operation during a critical period of organisational development.
…