Site Manager - Mappano Italy

Life tastes better with ice cream

With 19.000 expert ice cream colleagues and iconic brands like Wall’s, Cornetto and Ben & Jerry’s, loved in 76 countries, we are the world’s largest Ice Cream company leading the industry.

We create iconic ice cream brands that are part of everyday life, bringing moments of joy to millions of people around the world. Everybody loves ice cream. And as the world’s biggest pure‑play ice cream company, we have the scale and ambition to make a real difference.

What truly sets us apart is how we work.

We move fast and keep things simple. We turn ideas into action, trust people to take ownership, and work as one team to win together with integrity. Our culture is high‑performance, collaborative and focused on getting things done.

We’re curious and ready for what’s next. We embrace digital, use data to make better decisions, and keep learning, including how AI can help us work smarter and serve consumers better.

The role

The Site Manager is accountable for the full performance and long-term development of the Mappano ice cream and food manufacturing site. The role owns safety, food safety, quality, service, cost, people, engineering, maintenance, compliance, and stakeholder management, ensuring the factory delivers its business commitments while protecting product integrity and building a stronger culture of operational discipline, accountability, and continuous improvement.

As the senior leader on site, the Site Manager represents the factory with employees, central functions, local authorities, unions, suppliers, customers, auditors, and the wider business. The role requires visible leadership on the shop floor, clear decision-making, strong stakeholder management, and the ability to translate food manufacturing priorities into reliable execution at site level.

What you'll be responsible for

• Lead the Mappano site with clear ownership for performance, priorities, and our people.
• Set the direction for the site and translate business objectives into practical operating plans.
• Build a culture based on safety, quality, discipline, accountability, and continuous improvement.
• Lead the site leadership team with clear roles, priorities, routines, and performance expectations.
• Ensure effective collaboration across manufacturing, engineering, quality, supply chain, finance, HR, and support functions.
• Take timely decisions, remove barriers, and ensure delivery of site commitments.
• Promote a culture focused on safety, quality, and operational excellence
• Ensure full compliance with health, safety, environmental, food safety, quality, hygiene, and regulatory requirements for an ice cream or food manufacturing operation.
• Lead a zero-harm mindset through visible safety leadership, strong operating discipline, and robust factory hygiene standards.
• Maintain audit readiness and ensure corrective actions are closed with pace and rigour.
• Own site risk management, emergency preparedness, product recall readiness, and business continuity planning.
• Ensure food safety and product quality are protected across raw materials, processing, packing, storage, and dispatch.
• Deliver the production plan safely, reliably, and to agreed service, food safety, and quality standards.
• Own site performance across service, cost, productivity, waste, efficiency, reliability, and product quality.
• Run effective performance reviews and ensure actions, owners, and deadlines are clear.
• Drive loss elimination, standards adherence, and disciplined execution of improvement plans across production, utilities, and warehousing.
• Ensure labour, ingredients, packaging materials, utilities, cold storage, and other manufacturing resources are planned and used effectively.
• Ensure effective control of production scheduling, line changeovers, cleaning windows, shelf-life requirements, and cold-chain constraints.
• Ensure site assets, utilities, refrigeration systems, production lines, packing equipment, cold storage, and infrastructure are operated and maintained safely and effectively.
• Drive reliability, maintenance discipline, and asset performance improvement in a food manufacturing environment.
• Oversee maintenance strategy, execution, spare parts discipline, technical standards, and hygienic engineering practices.
• Sponsor engineering improvements and capital projects that support safety, food safety, quality, service, cost, sustainability, and capacity.
• Ensure long-term resilience of the site through effective asset care, refrigeration reliability, utilities management, and investment planning.
• Own site operating budgets and deliver agreed financial performance.
• Deliver productivity, waste reduction, energy, and cost improvement targets.
• Manage capital expenditure with clear governance, business justification, and delivery discipline.
• Ensure resources are allocated to the highest-priority safety, service, compliance, and performance needs.
• Lead, coach, and develop the site leadership team and key functional leaders.
• Build capability, succession plans, and stronger leadership routines across the site.
• Strengthen employee engagement through clear communication, consistency, and visible leadership.
• Drive accountability through objective setting, performance management, and follow-through.
• Work constructively with employee representatives and unions, where applicable, to support stable industrial relations.
• Identify and deliver practical improvements in safety, quality, service, cost, waste, energy, and sustainability.
• Build a structured problem-solving culture that addresses root causes and prevents repeat issues.
• Ensure improvement initiatives are prioritised, resourced, tracked, and sustained.
• Embed standards and best practices into daily management rather than relying on short-term fixes.
• Act as the primary representative of the Mappano site with local stakeholders in Italy.
• Build trusted relationships with local authorities, regulatory bodies, community representatives, suppliers, contractors, and service partners.
• Manage constructive employee and industrial relations, including engagement with unions and employee representatives where applicable.
• Act as the key interface between the site and central functions, including Engineering, Supply Chain, Procurement, Quality, Finance, HR, R&D, and corporate teams.
• Align local site priorities with broader business objectives, governance requirements, and investment plans.
• Represent the site during audits, inspections, customer visits, corporate reviews, and external engagements.
• Communicate site performance, risks, issues, investment needs, and improvement plans clearly and factually.
• Resolve stakeholder issues with pace, professionalism, and clear ownership.

We're looking for someone who

• University degree in Engineering, Manufacturing, Food Science, Operations Management, or a related discipline.
• Significant senior leadership experience in an ice cream, food, dairy, frozen food, or FMCG manufacturing environment.
• Proven experience leading multifunctional factory operations, ideally with responsibility for manufacturing, engineering, quality, food safety, safety, finance, HR, and supply chain interfaces.
• Strong understanding of manufacturing systems, maintenance, engineering, quality, food safety, sanitation, cold chain, supply chain, and continuous improvement.
• Experience managing operating budgets, capital expenditure, productivity programmes, waste reduction, and cost performance.
• Working knowledge of HACCP, GMP, allergen control, traceability, sanitation, audits, and food safety management systems.
• Strong people leadership, change leadership, communication, and stakeholder management capability.
• Experience managing employee relations and industrial relations in a manufacturing environment.
• Fluent Italian and strong English communication skills
• Ice cream, dairy, frozen food, chilled food, or broader food manufacturing experience.
• Experience managing a standalone manufacturing site with full site accountability.
• Demonstrated delivery of operational turnaround, reliability improvement, or performance improvement programmes.
• Lean Manufacturing, TPM, World Class Manufacturing, or structured continuous improvement experience.
• Experience with frozen supply chains, refrigeration systems, cold storage, environmental monitoring, or high-care food production areas.
• Experience working in complex matrix organisations with local and regional stakeholders
• Visible leadership and shop-floor presence
• Food safety and quality mindset
• Operational discipline and execution
• People leadership and team development
• Financial and business judgement
• Stakeholder management and influencing
• Change leadership and resilience
• Structured problem solving and decision-making
• Risk management and compliance mindset
• Clear communication in English and Italian
• Visible, hands-on leader who spends time in the operation and understands the reality of the site.
• Practical, fact-based, and able to simplify complex issues into clear actions.
• Builds trust and credibility with employees, unions, local stakeholders, and senior leaders.
• Demonstrates ownership, accountability, resilience, and strong follow-through.
• Balances short-term operational delivery with long-term site development, capability building, and asset health.
• Communicates clearly, directly, and consistently across all levels of the organisation.
• Safe operations and continuous improvement in safety performance.
• Reliable delivery of production, food safety, quality, and customer service commitments.
• Strong audit, hygiene, traceability, allergen control, sanitation, environmental monitoring, and compliance outcomes.
• Improved productivity, cost, waste, energy, efficiency, and reliability performance.
• Stable refrigeration, utilities, cold storage, and manufacturing asset performance.
• Clear accountability and stronger capability within the site leadership team.
• Stable employee and industrial relations.
• Capital and improvement projects delivered with clear governance, timing, cost, and benefit tracking.
• Credible relationships with local authorities, unions, suppliers, customers, auditors, central functions, and key business stakeholders

What you'll get

Alongside meaningful work and strong development, we offer a reward package that typically includes

• Market-competitive pay (Range 57.200 € - 89.375 €) and performance-related rewards
• Flexible ways of working
• Support for health, wellbeing and life outside of work
• Time off to rest and recharge
• Ongoing learning and development opportunities
• Meal vouchers worth 8 € per day for each day actually worked
• Reward system in use within the group
• Shares in use within the group

#TMICC

Why join us?

This is a place for people who are passionate about ice cream and are growth obsessed - both for the business and for themselves. People who act like an owner and drive our business end-to-end. People who are driven by success to deliver more than we ever thought we could! 

You’ll thrive here if you value an inclusive culture, with low ego and hierarchy - and if you’re excited to continuously learn and challenge how we work, using digital, data, and new thinking to push us forward.

- Roles with real accountability and visible impact
- Free to move fast, experiment and challenge how things are done
- Continuous learning and development as the business grows
- Reward linked to performance and contribution.

Your career here is shaped by what you deliver, as you work across functions and markets and grow with the business.

Ready to build the future of Ice Cream?

If this sounds like the place where you'd thrive, we'd love to hear from you. Apply online and share your CV. We'll review your application and be in touch with the next steps. 

If you are an individual with a disability and require assistance at any time during our recruitment process, please let your Talent Acquisition Partner know.

Additional information

The Magnum Ice Cream Company is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We embrace diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment where everyone can do their best work regardless of age, disability, gender identity, race, religion, sexual orientation, or any other protected characteristic. We encourage people with all backgrounds to apply including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, and Māori and Pacific Peoples.