Maintenance and Reliability Leader

Roquette is a family-owned global leader in plant-based ingredients and a leading provider of pharmaceutical excipients.

Want to help us make a difference?
Using plant-based resources, we collaborate with our customers and partners to imagine and offer ingredients to better feed people and treat patients.
Each of our ingredients responds to unique and essential needs, and they enable healthier lifestyles.

We are seeking a highly motivated Maintenance & Reliability Leader to join our Newark Leadership Team. This is a critical leadership role with broad influence across maintenance, reliability, engineering, safety, capital planning, and operational performance.

As a key member of the site leadership team and primary backup to the Site Leader, you will have the opportunity to shape plant culture, drive asset reliability, develop talent, and improve business performance while ensuring the safe and efficient production of high-quality products.

If you are a servant leader with a passion for reliability excellence, continuous improvement, and people development, we encourage you to apply.

This position is located in Newark, Delaware, United States (Newark, DE, USA). The Newark site plays a critical role in supporting Roquette's pharmaceutical business through the manufacture of high-quality excipient products utilized throughout the global healthcare industry.

Compensation

The current salary range for this role is estimated to be $125,000-175,000. In addition, this position may also be eligible to earn performance-based incentive compensation. The specific compensation offered to a candidate will be influenced by a variety of factors including but not limited to skills, qualifications, experience, and location.

What We Offer

• A highly collaborative team environment with ample room for exponential career growth.
• Competitive pay, annual performance bonus, comprehensive benefits, 6.2% company retirement contribution, and professional development opportunities.
• Generous paid time off and 12 annual paid company holidays.
• 12 weeks 100% paid maternity leave, and up to 4 weeks 100% paid parental leave (including adoption/surrogacy/foster care leave) for non-birthing parents.
• Student loan repayment assistance and tuition reimbursement program for select roles.
• Annual wellness benefit and wellness centered programs focused on your health needs.

What You’ll Do

This position offers a unique opportunity to:

• Lead a high-performing maintenance and reliability organization.
• Influence site strategy and operational performance.
• Drive meaningful improvements in safety, asset reliability, and productivity.
• Develop future leaders and technical talent.
• Serve as a key leadership partner to the Site Leader and Newark Management Team.
• Build long-term maintenance and reliability capability within a globally recognized organization.

Site Leadership Team Member

• Serve as a key member of the Newark Leadership Team, providing strategic direction and leadership across the site.
• Partner with the Site Leader to drive operational excellence, organizational effectiveness, and business performance.
• Lead site-wide initiatives impacting safety, quality, environmental performance, employee engagement, and financial results.
• Model Roquette's values and leadership behaviors while helping shape a culture of accountability, ownership, and continuous improvement.

Maintenance & Reliability Excellence

• Develop and execute the site's maintenance and reliability strategy.
• Relentlessly pursue maximum plant reliability to support safe and efficient operations.
• Lead maintenance, reliability engineering, utilities, facilities, and infrastructure engineering activities.
• Own site Maintenance & Reliability KPIs including Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF), Mean Time To Repair (MTTR), preventive maintenance compliance, and maintenance cost effectiveness to ensure effective performance monitoring.
• Drive preventive, predictive, precision, and reliability-centered maintenance programs.
• Lead root cause failure analysis (RCFA), failure elimination efforts, and equipment reliability improvement initiatives.
• Implement asset management and lifecycle strategies that optimize reliability, cost, and performance.
• Own site asset criticality assessments, lifecycle management plans, and long-term equipment replacement strategies to sustain safe and reliable operations.
• Ensure effective maintenance planning, scheduling, and work execution processes.
• Champion the effective use of maintenance management systems, reliability data, and analytics to improve decision-making.
• Ensure MRO inventory management processes and storage areas comply with Roquette standards.
• Safely coordinate and execute maintenance turnarounds, shutdowns, and major maintenance activities.
• Support process automation, engineering, and operational teams through technical leadership and problem-solving expertise.

Safety, Quality & Compliance Leadership

• Partner with the Site Leader to achieve EHS&Q goals and maintain compliance with regulatory and permit requirements.
• Advocate and reinforce Roquette's Life Saving Rules through visible leadership and field engagement.
• Maintain a strong daily field presence to coach employees, reinforce standards, identify risks, recognize positive behaviors, and understand operational challenges firsthand.
• Ensure appropriate technical review of maintenance work plans with consideration for safety, environmental, process safety, and quality requirements.
• Drive initiatives to eliminate hazards through engineering controls, process improvements, and capital investments.
• Lead or support investigations, corrective actions, and continuous learning efforts.
• Ensure compliance with ISO 9001, FSSC, EXCiPACT, and all applicable regulatory requirements.
• Promote a culture where safety, quality, and environmental stewardship always come before production output.

People Leadership & Organizational Development

• Lead, coach, mentor, and develop a team of approximately 20 maintenance and technical professionals.
• Build and sustain a high-performance culture focused on accountability, engagement, and continuous learning.
• Maintain and strengthen site maintenance and reliability expertise through effective training and knowledge retention.
• Serve as steward of site maintenance and reliability knowledge, ensuring critical technical expertise is documented, retained, and effectively transferred across the organization.
• Partner with Human Resources to recruit, develop, and retain top technical talent.
• Conduct performance management, employee development planning, succession planning, and career coaching activities.
• Drive organizational effectiveness through clear communication, coaching, and servant leadership.
• Manage employee relations and disciplinary matters appropriately and consistently.
• Foster collaboration between Operations, Engineering, Maintenance, and support functions.

Capital Projects, Facilities & Contractor Management

• Lead development of site capital improvement and infrastructure investment plans.
• Ensure capital investments align with reliability, safety, sustainability, and business objectives.
• Oversee site utilities, facilities engineering, maintenance contracts, and infrastructure programs.
• Partner with Procurement and EHS to effectively manage contractor performance and master service agreements.
• Ensure contractor activities are executed safely and according to site expectations.

Financial Leadership & Continuous Improvement

• Own and manage the site maintenance budget in partnership with the Site Leader and Cost Accountant.
• Actively participate in Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) management and forecasting activities.
• Drive improvements in maintenance cost effectiveness while maintaining reliability and compliance standards.
• Understand plant profitability drivers and support business decisions that maximize margin and EBITDA.
• Evaluate projects and initiatives through sound financial analysis and return-on-investment principles.
• Champion Lean, Six Sigma, Root Cause Investigation, and continuous improvement methodologies.
• Support cross-functional improvement efforts and ensure sustainable implementation of improvements.
• Develop strong partnerships across EHS, Operations, Quality, Procurement, Supply Chain, and Corporate functions.

Success in this role will be measured through:

• Continuous improvement in personal safety, process safety, environmental, and quality performance.
• Increased equipment reliability, availability, and overall asset effectiveness.
• Reduction in unplanned downtime and maintenance-related losses.
• Development of a highly engaged and accountable maintenance and reliability organization.
• Effective execution of preventive, predictive, and reliability-centered maintenance strategies.
• Successful delivery of maintenance budgets and capital investments.
• Improved planning, scheduling, and execution of maintenance activities and turnarounds.
• Sustainable implementation of continuous improvement initiatives that strengthen long-term business performance.

What You’ll Need:

Education

• Bachelor's degree required; Engineering degree preferred.

Experience

• 8+ years of manufacturing, engineering, maintenance, or reliability experience.
• Experience leading technical teams in a manufacturing environment.
• Experience managing maintenance budgets, resources, and priorities.
• Strong experience with maintenance and reliability systems, processes, and strategies.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office applications.

Preferred Experience

• 10+ years of manufacturing leadership experience.
• Experience in pharmaceutical, food, specialty chemical, or other regulated manufacturing environments.
• Reliability engineering or asset management experience.
• Experience leading maintenance turnarounds and shutdowns.
• Experience with CMMS systems and maintenance planning processes.
• Lean, Six Sigma, TPM, or other continuous improvement certifications.
• Experience leading capital projects and infrastructure improvements.

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities

• Demonstrated commitment to safety, environmental stewardship, and quality.
• Strong technical problem-solving and analytical capabilities.
• Proven leadership skills with the ability to influence across all organizational levels.
• Strong root cause analysis and troubleshooting expertise.
• Excellent organizational and project management skills.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities in a dynamic manufacturing environment.
• Strong change management and continuous improvement leadership skills.
• Exceptional communication, coaching, and interpersonal skills.
• Financial acumen and business-owner mindset.
• Ability to build trust, inspire teams, and drive accountability.
• Strong facilitation, collaboration, and cross-functional leadership abilities.

Business Travel

• Occasional domestic and international travel may be required.

Supervisory Responsibility

• This role directly leads a team of approximately 20 maintenance, reliability, and technical professionals.

Work Environment

• This role spends approximately 70% of the time in an office environment and 30% of the time in a manufacturing plant environment. A visible field presence is expected to support safe operations, employee engagement, and effective leadership.

Position Type / Expected Hours

• Full-time position.
• Flexibility is required to support business and operational needs.
• Occasional off-hours support may be required during shutdowns, emergencies, or significant operational events.

Physical Demands

While performing the duties of this role, employees are regularly required to:

• Stand and walk for extended periods.
• Climb stairs and access industrial equipment areas.
• Use hands and arms to handle tools, equipment, and materials.
• Work in hot, cold, noisy, and industrial environments.
• Wear required personal protective equipment (PPE).

Other Duties 

Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change at any time with or without notice. 

AAP/EEO Statement  

Roquette is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, physical or mental disability, genetic factors, military/veteran status or other characteristics protected by law. “AAP, EEO, Drug-Free Workplace”

Roquette Newark’s next Maintenance and Reliability Leader will gain:

• Opportunity to lead a critical pharmaceutical manufacturing operation.
• Significant influence on site strategy and performance.
• Exposure to global operations and leadership networks.
• Career growth opportunities within a multinational organization.
• Ability to shape reliability culture and asset management excellence.
• Opportunity to develop future leaders while making a visible impact on business results.

Build reliability. Develop people. Influence strategy. Lead the future of maintenance excellence at Roquette Newark.

If you identify yourself in this position, please apply by uploading your resume and let's start the journey together!

Roquette is proud to be a global company where you can find personal and professional growth through multiple diverse experiences. 

Roquette strives to create a dynamic workforce while remaining firmly committed to equal opportunity by complying with EEO laws.
 

As we continue to grow, Roquette understands that to be successful we must always be inclusive in our approach.

To find out more about our products, values and sustainable development ambitions visit us at www.roquette.com and at www.sustainability.roquette.com