Senior Director (m/f/d) - Digital & AI Manufacturing, Supply Chain & Quality Transformation

The Senior Director, Digital & AI Manufacturing, Supply Chain & Quality Transformation shapes Fresenius Kabi’s future Digital & AI agenda across these functions.

Partnering with senior TechOps, Supply Chain and Quality leaders across business units and global functions, the role defines the digital vision for operations beyond 2030: increasingly cloud-native, AI-first, data-driven and digitally enabled.

As TechOps leadership’s strategic Digital & AI partner, the role owns the Manufacturing, Supply Chain and Quality Trend Radar, continuously assessing emerging technologies, industry developments and disruptive innovations over a 3-5 year horizon. It translates trends into actionable recommendations on organizational implications and industry-leading practices.

The role provides end-to-end transparency of the TechOps Digital & AI portfolio as the primary reference for ongoing, planned and emerging initiatives. It identifies, prioritizes and sequences opportunities across Manufacturing, Supply Chain and Quality, guiding investment and recommending whether initiatives should continue, scale, evolve or stop based on strategic relevance, business value and scalability.

Working through an agile team of AI & Digital Innovation Acceleration Managers and Business Unit partners, the role translates business challenges and strategic ambitions into Digital & AI use cases. It guides innovation from strategic advisory and opportunity identification through proof-of-value pilots, providing investment and scaling recommendations and decision support.

With the Digital & AI Capability and Workforce Strategy & Engagement teams, the role strengthens digital capabilities, adoption and workforce transformation for AI-enabled operations. As an external ambassador, it represents Fresenius Kabi’s Digital & AI perspective in Manufacturing, Supply Chain and Quality forums, industry networks and strategic partnerships, aligned with Group and segment stakeholders.

Main Responsibilities:

Shape the Future of Manufacturing, Supply Chain & Quality

• Define the Digital & AI vision for Manufacturing, Supply Chain and Quality.

• Continuously assess external market trends, emerging technologies and industry best practices.

• Identify future capability requirements needed to maintain competitiveness over the next 3-5 years.

• Develop strategic roadmaps that balance long-term ambition with practical execution in a complex brownfield environment.

Trend Monitoring & Innovation Scouting

• Establish a systematic process to identify and assess emerging technologies (e.g., a Trend Radar), and regularly communicate findings to create a shared knowledge base across TechOps and Digital governance bodies.

• Build partnerships with technology providers, industry networks, start-ups and academic institutions.

• Assess each trend against maturity, relevance for Fresenius Kabi, GxP and regulatory implications, cross-BU scalability and business value, with a clear recommendation to act, pilot, monitor or discontinue, informed by benchmarking, vendor and start-up scouting, and industry networks.

Digital Portfolio Ownership & Synergy Realization

• Own the portfolio of Digital & AI initiatives across Manufacturing, Supply Chain and Quality and maintain transparency of the digital maturity landscape across production units as the foundation for scaling decisions.

• Identify duplication, capability gaps and synergies; recommend consolidation, reuse or scaling opportunities; and prioritize investments based on business value, strategic importance and operational feasibility.

Big Bets, Use Cases & Proof of Value

• Identify high-value AI opportunities across manufacturing, planning, logistics, quality and engineering.

• Shape high-impact use cases together with Business Unit Digital Partners, including value cases, success criteria and committed business sponsors.

• Functionally lead an agile delivery team during the Proof of Value (PoV) phase, own the go/no-go decision gate following PoV completion and ensure a scalable transition into TechOps functions and Kabi IT.

• Steer value realization throughout broader deployment and support the development of reference and lighthouse sites that make the future-state vision tangible (e.g., Factory of the Future).

Lead Business Transformation

• Serve as a trusted advisor and single point of entry into Digital & AI for senior TechOps stakeholders across Business Units; facilitate cross-BU strategic dialogue and support preparation of related executive leadership decisions.

• Ensure global solutions are designed for reuse and scalability across sites, regions and business units.

• Align business, Digital & AI and technology stakeholders around common objectives. Act as the key interface to Kabi IT, Fresenius Digital Technology, Data & Analytics, Quality and Regulatory Affairs; lead through expertise and relationships while proactively identifying strategic risks and escalating significant deviations.

• Leverage Enablement and Transformation resources within the team to strengthen digital capabilities, drive adoption and support the workforce transformation required for AI-enabled operations.

Requisite Qualification & Experience:

• University degree; MBA a plus.

• At least 10 years of relevant Supply Chain, Manufacturing or Quality experience, including significant experience in global pharmaceutical, life sciences, medical technology, chemical or similarly regulated manufacturing.

• Proven success leading large-scale digital or operational transformations, building business cases and securing executive investment sponsorship.

• Strong knowledge of TechOps systems (ERP, MES, LIMS/QMS, PLM, automation, shop-floor connectivity and planning) and modern data/AI architectures, with the technical fluency to challenge estimates independently.

• Hands-on brownfield experience with fragmented processes, systems and data, and experience in international matrix organizations spanning multiple business units and production sites.

• Fluent written and spoken English; German or other languages an advantage.

• Willingness to travel internationally (30-40%)