Sr. Quality Operations Manager – Central Europe

Key responsibilities

• Develop and maintain the regional Quality operating rhythm, governance model and review structure.
• Support establishing standard quality reviews at function, portfolio and project levels.
• Support maintaining alignment between global, business, regional and project quality priorities.

• Develop & maintain the regional quality performance dashboard and action-based reporting process.
• Consolidate and analyze COPQ, NCRs, customer complaints, audit findings, deviations, concessions and corrective-action performance.
• Support identifying trends, recurring failures and systemic risks across projects and portfolios.
• Provide fact-based insights and recommendations to regional Quality Leader.
• Ensure data quality, common KPI definitions and consistent reporting across portfolios.
• Develop meaningful leading indicators in addition to traditional lagging indicators.

• Solve problems to the root cause, think critically & support building problem-solving capabilities across region.
• Drive Lessons Learned process implementation & ensure significant lessons are read across to relevant projects, tenders (ITO), functions and portfolios.
• Support establishing a clear regional process to connect RCA, 8D, Kaizen, LL, CI and other structured problem-solving activities outcome and align with global quality team.
• Monitor root-cause quality, countermeasure effectiveness and action sustainability.
• Challenge weak problem statement & root-cause analyses and support teams to sustain corrective actions.
• Ensure that problem-solving ownership remains with the responsible business and functional teams through influencing the key stake holders.

• Identify opportunities to simplify and standardize quality processes.
• Reduce manual reporting, duplicate reviews and non-value-adding administrative work.
• Support digital quality dashboards, workflow tools and data analytics.
• Establish standard templates, review criteria and minimum quality requirements.
• Work with global quality teams to improve common tools and systems.

• Build a strong community & relationship across Project Quality Managers, Equipment Quality Managers and Site Quality teams including leadership teams.
• Support competency assessment and development planning for regional quality personnel.
• Promote proactive risk management, prevention and accountability.
• Demonstrate inclusive leadership and a strong commitment to safety, ethics and compliance.

Required qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in engineering, quality management, operations management or a related discipline.
• Significant experience in Quality, project execution, operations or engineering within EPC, infrastructure, energy, industrial or similarly complex project environments.
• Demonstrated experience managing quality governance across multiple projects or portfolios.
• Strong understanding of NCR management, COPQ, RCA, auditing and corrective-action systems.
• Basic knowledge of ISO 9001 and quality management systems.
• Strong analytical capability and experience using operational data to drive decisions.
• Ability to influence senior stakeholders and cross-functional teams without relying solely on hierarchical authority.
• Strong communication, facilitation and organizational skills.
• Fluent English; (German or another relevant European language would be advantageous).
• Ability & willingness to travel.

Preferred qualifications

• High flexibility on taking new tasks or initiatives.  
• Lean, quality auditor or recognized RCA qualification.
• Experience in high-voltage transmission, grid infrastructure, power generation or major capital projects.
• Experience with supplier quality, site quality, construction or commissioning.
• Experience managing regional or multi-country operations.
• Knowledge of project management and risk-management principles.
• Experience implementing digital quality-management or reporting systems.