Sr. Quality Operations Manager – Central Europe

Job Description Summary

The Regional Quality Operations Manager is responsible for maintaining an effective operating rhythm for Quality & Continuous improvements across the Central Europe project portfolio.
The role drives consistency, transparency and execution discipline across project, site, supplier and portfolio quality activities. It supports that quality risks, non-conformities, cost of poor quality, audit findings, corrective actions and lessons learned are systematically identified, reviewed, escalated and closed.
Reporting directly to Region Quality & Lean Leader and working closely with Portfolio Quality Leaders, Project Quality Managers, Supplier Quality, Lean, Engineering, Sourcing, Project Management, Construction and Commissioning, the role supports the organization to move from reactive issue management toward proactive quality risk prevention.

Job Description

Key responsibilities

1. Regional quality operating system

• 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.

2. Quality performance management

• 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.

3. Corrective action and problem-solving governance

• 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.

4. Process standardization and digitalization

• 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.

5. Leadership and capability development

• 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.

Additional Information