EMEA QHSE Director in Southampton

We are seeking an experienced EMEA QHSE director on behalf of our client. The EMEA QHSE director will be responsible for all aspects of QHSE within the European business, in particular representing factories in France, UK, Tunisia and Denmark. The EMEA QA director is responsible directly for all quality related matters in collaboration with other functional leaders (e.g. Manufacturing, Engineering, Finance) to set objectives, budgets and improvement plans accordingly. Accountable for Assurance & Systems, Product Quality and Customer Quality, the EMEA QHSE Director is responsible for defining, leading and continuously improving strategy, control and performance. This role provides strategic leadership across all businesses within EMEA, ensuring that QHSE is fully integrated into business strategy, operational decision-making and company culture. The EMEA QHSE Director is part of the Executive Management Team, ensuring compliance with legislation, standards, customer requirements and Group policies whilst driving operational excellence, risk reduction and continuous improvement.

Responsibilities:

• Define the Group QHSE strategy establishing the quality vision, objectives and policies aligned with business strategy.
• Ensure compliance with applicable regulations, standards, customer requirements, and certifications (e.g., ISO 9001, 45001, 14001, ECOVADIS, IATF 16949).
• Manage external regulatory bodies and lead audits and certification: oversee internal, external, customer, and certification audits and ensure closure of findings.
• Harmonize quality system: develop common quality processes, standards, tools, and KPIs across all sites and subsidiaries, consistently with Group policies.
• Drive continuous improvement: Measure efficiency of solutions and processes, drive the needed changes, lead initiatives to reduce defects, complaints, rework, scrap, and quality-related costs.
• Manage customer quality: ensure customer satisfaction, manage major complaints, and coordinate corrective/preventive actions.
• Supplier quality: establish supplier-quality requirements and monitor critical suppliers and their performance.
• Quality risk management: identify and mitigate product, process, regulatory, and operational quality risks.
• Develop QHSE culture: promote QHSE ownership throughout the organization and at all levels through training, communication, and leadership.
• Manage and develop the QHSE organization: define roles, competencies, resources, appraisals, variable salary parts and career development for quality Heads and teams.
• Monitor EMEA QHSE performance: establish dashboards and KPIs and regularly report performance to executive management.
• Support new products: ensure quality is built into design, development, and production processes.
• Crisis and escalation management: lead the response to major quality incidents and coordinate actions across affected sites.
• Quality cost management: monitor Cost of Poor Quality and prioritise actions with the highest financial and customer impact.

Key Performance Indicators:

• Customer satisfaction
• Quality non-conformities and customer complaints
• Cost of poor quality
• Regulatory compliances
• Environmental incidents
• Energy, emissions, waste and resource-efficiency indicators
• QHSE maturity across business units
• Employee engagement and safety culture indicators
• Achievement of Group QHSE strategic objectives

Requirements:

• Qualification in Engineering, Science, Environmental Management, Occupational Health & Safety, Quality Management or a related discipline.
• Strategic leadership: ability to translate business strategy into a clear QHSE agenda.
• Executive presence: confident communication and influence at Board and Executive Committee level.
• People leadership: ability to build high-performing teams and develop QHSE talent across multiple different entities.
• Continuous-improvement mindset: commitment to learning, prevention and operational excellence.
• Fluent in English and French (mandatory).
• Significant senior-level experience in QHSE leadership, within a multinational industrial manufacturing structure.

This role will be based in the UK but with significant travel to the various production sites in France, Tunisia and Denmark.