Sr Director, Sustaining Engineering

About the job

Purpose and Scope: The Head of Sustaining Center for Value Stream Dialyzer and Capacity Planning (VSD) for In-Center holds two critical global leadership mandates:

• Lead Sustaining Engineering and post-launch product lifecycle management for the €1.2B Value Stream Dialyzers business
• Lead integrated capacity planning and capacity strategy for the €4B In-Center business unit

For VSD, the position protects business continuity, product compliance, customer supply, manufacturing performance, and lifecycle competitiveness across the global Dialyzer portfolio.

For In-Center, the position establishes the global capacity-planning framework and translates commercial demand, portfolio strategy, regional growth, and technology roadmaps into capacity scenarios, investment priorities, and manufacturing-network recommendations.

The position reports to the SVP, Value Stream Dialyzers Leader , serves as a member of the VSD Leadership Team , and operates with an enterprise-wide mandate across In-Center.

• Strategic Business Impact
• Protect €1.2B in annual VSD revenue by safeguarding product availability, regulatory compliance, manufacturing continuity, and post-launch performance.
• Lead capacity planning for the €4B In-Center business , ensuring timely capacity availability to support growth, portfolio transitions, and customer demand.
• Own the global Dialyzer portfolio after launch , including reliability, compliance, manufacturability, supply resilience, cost competitiveness, and lifecycle value.
• Define and authorize VSD sustaining priorities , including critical product, process, material, supplier, quality, and manufacturing changes.
• Develop and recommend In-Center capacity assumptions and scenarios and major capacity, technology, and manufacturing-network investments.
• Authorize business-continuity actions when supply, quality, regulatory, supplier, or manufacturing risks threaten business performance.
• Drive structural productivity and cost improvement across the established Dialyzer portfolio and manufacturing network.
• Build and lead global organizations with strong engineering, analytical, financial, and strategic planning capabilities.

PRINCIPAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

• VSD Sustaining Engineering and Lifecycle Leadership
• Define, approve, and lead the global Sustaining Engineering strategy for Value Stream Dialyzers.
• Hold executive accountability for the performance and continuity of the Dialyzer portfolio following commercial launch.
• Authorize and prioritize product, process, material, supplier, quality, regulatory, and manufacturing changes based on patient, business, compliance, and supply impact.
• Lead the transition of newly launched products into stable, scalable, and cost-effective lifecycle management.
• Approve lifecycle roadmaps and recommendations for product extension, redesign, transfer, rationalization, hold, or discontinuation.
• Anticipate and mitigate lifecycle risks, including obsolescence, material discontinuation, supplier dependency, quality trends, and evolving regulatory requirements.
• Serve as the executive escalation and decision authority for critical sustaining issues within the position’s mandate.

• VSD Business Continuity and Competitiveness
• Authorize cross-functional response programs where supplier, material, quality, regulatory, capacity, or manufacturing risks threaten customer supply.
• Approve mitigation priorities, contingency measures, and resource deployment within delegated authority.
• Establish governance and executive visibility for material business-continuity risks.
• Define and approve the VSD productivity and lifecycle competitiveness roadmap.
• Lead initiatives in automation, yield improvement, process optimization, design-to-value, material cost reduction, standardization, and complexity reduction.
• Hold teams accountable for measurable improvements in supply reliability, cost, margin, quality, and lifecycle performance.

• In-Center Capacity Planning, Investment and Manufacturing-Network Strategy
• Define, lead, and institutionalize the integrated capacity-planning and manufacturing-network strategy for the €4B In-Center business.
• Translate market demand, commercial ambitions, portfolio roadmaps, regional growth, and technology strategies into long-term capacity requirements and investment priorities.
• Establish a transparent global view of demand, effective capacity, utilization, constraints, replacement needs, and investment timing; approve planning assumptions, methodologies, and capacity scenarios before presentation to In-Center leadership.
• Challenge demand and supply assumptions, identify future constraints early, and recommend capacity-allocation priorities during constrained-supply situations.
• Lead the evaluation of strategic alternatives, including existing-site expansion, new or replacement lines, technology and product conversions, automation, product transfers, regional manufacturing options, internal versus external manufacturing, and site consolidation or repositioning.
• Ensure decisions reflect total business economics, including capital, production and logistics costs, market access, regulatory complexity, resilience, implementation timing, and scalability.
• Advise senior leadership on investment prioritization and maintain executive oversight to ensure approved investments deliver committed capacity, cost, timing, and business outcomes.
• Direct and develop business cases (~ 100M Euro Capex one production dialyzer line) of new production line by leading cross-functional organizations.

• Executive Governance and Cross-Functional Leadership
• Serve as a member of the VSD Leadership Team, contributing to business strategy, portfolio direction, financial planning, and organizational priorities.
• Represent VSD and In-Center in relevant sustaining, capacity, and investment governance forums.
• Chair or sponsor global governance for VSD sustaining and In-Center capacity planning.
• Lead alignment across Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Product Management, R&D, Quality, Regulatory, Procurement, Finance, Commercial, and Digital.
• Resolve cross-functional, cross-site, and cross-regional prioritization conflicts within the position’s mandate.
• Ensure executive decisions are translated into clear accountability, funding, milestones, and measurable outcomes.

• Organization, People and Financial Leadership
• Design and lead the global VSD Sustaining Center and In-Center Capacity Planning organization.
• Lead senior managers, Sustaining Center leaders, capacity-planning leaders, technical experts, business managers, and analysts.
• Approve organizational structures, workforce plans, capability requirements, and succession priorities in alignment with HR governance.
• Own budgets and resource plans and approve expenditures within delegated authority.
• Set performance expectations and hold leaders accountable for business, financial, quality, technical, and organizational outcomes.
• Build a high-performance culture centered on accountability, speed, collaboration, transparency, and enterprise value creation.
• Sponsor digital tools and analytics that strengthen lifecycle, capacity, investment, and risk-based decision-making.

Decision Authority: Subject to FME’s delegation of authority, Quality Management System, and applicable governance requirements, the position will:

• For VSD
• Approve global Sustaining Engineering priorities and portfolio sequencing.
• Authorize major product, process, material, supplier, and manufacturing change programs.
• Approve sustaining budgets and resource allocation within delegated authority.
• Authorize supply-continuity and risk-mitigation actions.
• Approve or endorse major Dialyzer lifecycle decisions.
• Stop, redirect, or escalate programs not meeting approved business, quality, regulatory, financial, or delivery requirements.

• For In-Center
• Recommend global capacity-planning assumptions, methodologies, and scenarios.
• Authorize development of strategic capacity and investment business cases.
• Recommend major CAPEX, capacity expansion, technology transfer, product transfer, and manufacturing-footprint decisions.
• Challenge and validate demand, utilization, timing, and investment assumptions.
• Resolve or escalate cross-portfolio and cross-site capacity conflicts.
• Represent In-Center in capacity, investment, and manufacturing-network reviews.

• PHYSICAL DEMANDS AND WORKING CONDITIONS:
• The physical demands and work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
• Requires travel both domestic and international travel, up to 25%.

SUPERVISION:
Will be responsible for a global team of up to 20 staff members including managerial level staff.

EDUCATION, EXPERIENCE AND REQUIRED SKILLS :

• Master’s degree in engineering or a related discipline; MBA or equivalent advanced degree preferred.
• Minimum 15+ years of progressive leadership experience in a global, regulated, and technology-driven organization.
• Significant leadership experience in Sustaining Engineering, Product Lifecycle Management, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Capacity Strategy, Operations, R&D, or Finance.
• Proven experience leading senior managers and geographically distributed, multidisciplinary organizations.
• Demonstrated accountability for major portfolios, capacity strategies, business-continuity programs, budgets, or manufacturing networks.
• Strong record of developing CAPEX proposals and influencing senior investment decisions.
• Demonstrated ability to manage complex supplier, quality, regulatory, manufacturing, and capacity risks.
• Strong commercial judgment, financial acumen, strategic thinking, and executive decision-making capability.
• Ability to influence beyond direct reporting lines and align senior stakeholders across functions, sites, and regions.
• Courage to make, communicate, and defend difficult decisions.
• Fluent business English and willingness to travel internationally.

Relocation available to Utah.

Fresenius Medical Care maintains a drug-free workplace in accordance with applicable federal and state laws.

Fresenius Medical Care is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, parental status, national origin, age, disability, military service, or other non-merit-based factors