Senior Director, Manufacturing & Site Leader - Freiburg and Stetten

Work Flexibility: Onsite

Stryker Global Quality & Operations (GQO) is seeking an experienced Senior Director, Manufacturing & Site Leader to lead one of Stryker’s most strategically important manufacturing campuses. This highly visible leadership role oversees more than 1,400 employees across Stryker’s Freiburg and Stetten locations in southwest Germany and is responsible for driving manufacturing excellence, operational performance, talent development, and long-term growth strategies aligned to the site’s capabilities and business needs.

As the leader of the Freiburg campus, you will oversee a multi-division environment leading manufacturing for Instruments, Trauma & Extremities as well as Orthotech with co-located on-site divisional R&D and QA/RA functions for Instruments, Trauma & Extremities, Endoscopy, Orthotech and Medical divisions. A substantial Advanced Operations (AO) organization serves as a critical bridge between local and global R&D teams, ensuring successful new product introductions and seamless integration of products launched from other Stryker locations. Success in this role requires a proven ability to lead at scale, foster innovation, drive continuous improvement, and build strong partnerships across a diverse global organization. The role includes the General Manager function (legal director) for both locations covering all employees of these two sites.

Campus operations include the following focus areas:

• High-precision manufacturing of small bone osteosynthesis implants
  (plates and screws for hand, foot, cranio-maxillofacial and neuro applications)
• Digital design and additive manufacturing of patient-specific cranio-maxillofacial and neuro implants
• High-precision electromechanical assembly of smart surgical instruments and high-accuracy localization and tracking devices for surgical guidance systems
• Assembly of computer platforms for computer aided surgery
• Micro-precision manufacturing of electrodes and functional bioelectronic devices

Main responsibilities

• Develop and execute a campus strategy for Freiburg and Stetten that aligns with divisional and GQO priorities, ensuring long-term operational capability, business resilience, customer performance, and growth readiness.
• Lead all manufacturing operations to deliver world-class performance across Quality, Service, Cost, Delivery, and Safety, while ensuring manufacturing capabilities meet current and future business needs across all supported divisions.
• Drive manufacturing excellence through continuous improvement, automation, innovation, and strategic capital investments, ensuring the campus remains at the forefront of advanced manufacturing technologies.
• Oversee successful new product introductions by partnering closely with R&D, Advanced Operations, and divisional leadership to deliver launches on time, within budget, and in alignment with supply and demand expectations.
• Provide overall financial leadership for the campus, including ownership of budgeting, forecasting, capital planning, and delivery of financial commitments.
• Foster a high-performance culture grounded in trust, accountability, engagement, inclusion, and collaboration, while establishing a clear vision and direction for the campus leadership team.
• Build organizational capability through robust talent management, succession planning, leadership development, and the attraction, development, and retention of top talent.
• Ensure manufacturing capacity and supply continuity to support business growth, demand variability, and long-term scalability, while driving productivity improvements and sustainable cost reductions through operational excellence.
• Partner across the Freiburg campus and global organization to maximize shared infrastructure, resources, and capabilities, enabling collaboration across multiple divisions and functions.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, manufacturing, operations, supply chain, business or a related discipline.
• 10+ years of leadership experience in manufacturing, operations or a related environment, including responsibility for business performance through others.
• Proven track record of building high-performing engaged teams and leading through change in a complex environment.
• Excellent English and German speaking skills

Preferred Qualifications

• Advanced degree
• Experience in a medical device or similarly regulated manufacturing environment.
• Deep knowledge of Lean manufacturing systems and continuous improvement, with evidence of embedding these principles at site level.
• Demonstrated ability to think beyond the site, leveraging a global and enterprise perspective to align operations, talent, and investment decisions with long-term business strategy.
• Demonstrated ability to lead employee engagement, talent development and culture-building initiatives that improve organizational performance.
• Strong strategic capability, business acumen and experience balancing short-term execution with long-term site capability building.
• Experience leading cross-functional teams and influencing across matrixed organizations.
• Strong communication, executive presence and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to lead confidently at site, divisional and global level.

Travel Percentage: 30%