Senior Manager, Operational Excellence (PPI)

Work Schedule

Standard (Mon-Fri)

Environmental Conditions

Adherence to all Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) Safety Standards

Job Description

As part of the Thermo Fisher Scientific team, you’ll discover meaningful work that makes a positive impact on a global scale. Join our colleagues in bringing our Mission to life every single day to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer. We provide our global teams with the resources needed to achieve individual career goals while helping to take science a step beyond by developing solutions for some of the world’s toughest challenges, like protecting the environment, making sure our food is safe or helping find cures for cancer.

We are the Clinical Trials Division (CTD): We Supply the Hope that Changes Lives  

CTD partners with pharmaceutical and biotech customers around the world to ensure the right patients get the right therapies in the right doses at the right time - a concept that we internally adopt as "There is a Patient Waiting." Our unique blend of services includes project management, packaging, distribution, transportation management and specialty logistics, ancillary supply management, clinical supply optimization, bio-repository storage and much more. Our more than 4000 employees in over 15 countries work hard every day knowing that what they do matters!

Position Summary:

The Senior Manager, Operational Excellence (PPI) is a key member of the UK Clinical Trials Business Site Leadership Team (SLT), responsible for driving operational excellence, productivity, organisational effectiveness, and business transformation across the site. 

This role exists to help the organisation translate strategy into execution.  Working across a complex, highly regulated environment, the successful candidate will partner with leaders to improve performance, remove barriers, accelerate decision-making, strengthen accountability, and deliver measurable business outcomes. 

The role combines Operational Excellence leadership, business performance management, change leadership, organisational effectiveness, productivity ownership, and capability development. 

Success in this role requires more than identifying improvement opportunities. The successful candidate will demonstrate a strong bias for action, ensuring business priorities are translated into clear plans, owned actions, measurable outcomes, and sustainable results.

The Senior Manager will be a visible leader who builds trust, creates alignment, challenges constructively, and drives execution across the organisation.

Key Responsibilities

Site Leadership Team Leadership

• Serve as an active and influential member of the UK Clinical Trials Business Site Leadership Team.
• Contribute to site strategy, organisational effectiveness, business performance, and long-term growth plans.
• Act as a trusted advisor and thought partner to leaders across the business.
• Provide constructive challenge to improve decision quality and business outcomes.
• Help leaders translate strategic priorities into executable plans and measurable deliverables.
• Drive timely execution of agreed business priorities, ensuring actions are clearly owned, tracked, and delivered.
• Foster a culture of accountability, ownership, collaboration, and continuous improvement.

Productivity & Business Performance

• Own the Clinical Trials Business productivity strategy, cultural transformation, and multi-year cost savings roadmap.
• Deliver annual productivity commitments and agreed business benefits.
• Establish governance processes that provide visibility, accountability, and control of productivity initiatives
• Partner with Finance and business leaders to identify, validate, prioritise, and realise savings opportunities and performance impacts
• Ensure committed actions are delivered on time and business benefits are realised.
• Provide regular updates to the Site Leadership Team on progress, risks, barriers, and future opportunities.

Operational Excellence & Continuous Improvement

• Lead deployment and continuous evolution of Thermo Fisher Scientific’s Practical Process Improvement (PPI) Business System.
• Facilitate cross-functional improvement initiatives that improve operational performance, customer experience, quality, compliance, and employee engagement.
• Apply structured problem-solving methodologies to address complex business challenges.
• Simplify processes, eliminate waste, reduce complexity, and improve organisational effectiveness.
• Promote adoption of performance management systems, continuous improvement principles, and best practices.
• Ensure improvement activity delivers measurable and sustainable business outcomes.

Change Leadership & Organisational Enablement

• Act as a visible champion for organisational change and business transformation.
• Build strong relationships and credibility across all levels of the organisation.
• Connect teams, functions, processes, and initiatives to improve collaboration and execution.
• Influence stakeholders without direct authority to achieve business objectives.
• Create clarity, ownership, accountability, and urgency around key initiatives.
• Identify barriers to progress and drive practical solutions.
• Maintain momentum and focus to ensure initiatives progress at the pace required by the business.

Digital Transformation & Future Capability

• Partner with Digital, IT, Operations, Quality, HR, and business leaders to enable transformation initiatives.
• Identify opportunities to leverage AI, automation, analytics, and digital technologies.
• Evaluate opportunities based on both immediate business impact and long-term strategic value.
• Support development of future operating models that improve agility, resilience, efficiency, and customer experience.
• Maintain awareness of industry trends and emerging technologies.

Capability Development

• Build Operational Excellence capability across leaders and teams.
• Coach and mentor leaders on continuous improvement, problem-solving, accountability, and change leadership.
• Develop a culture where improvement becomes part of everyday work.
• Support leaders in developing the behaviours required to lead through influence and deliver results.
• Promote knowledge sharing, collaboration, and adoption of best practices.

Knowledge, Skills & Experience:                                                                                                                  

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Science, Operations, Business, Supply Chain, or related discipline, or equivalent experience.
• Significant leadership experience within Operational Excellence, Continuous Improvement, Business Transformation, Operations, Supply Chain, or related disciplines.
• Demonstrated success delivering measurable business improvements within complex matrix organisations.
• Experience owning productivity, cost savings, operational performance, or transformation portfolios.
• Proven ability to lead and influence senior stakeholders without direct authority.
• Experience operating as a member of a senior leadership team preferred.
• Lean Six Sigma Black Belt (preferred).
• Experience within a regulated environment preferred.
• Exposure to AI, automation, advanced analytics, or digital transformation initiatives advantageous.

How will you get here?

• Strong personal accountability and ownership.
• A proven bias for action and delivery.
• Ability to consistently translate strategy into execution.
• Strong stakeholder management and influencing capability with ability to build trust, create alignment, and deliver results through others.
• Ability to create urgency and maintain momentum.
• Demonstrated track record of delivering commitments through effective action management and follow-through (makes sound decisions with solid verbal and written communication skills).
• Strong business and financial acumen.
• Systems thinking and intellectual curiosity.
• Resilience, adaptability, and continuous learning.
• Courage to challenge constructively and drive positive change.
• Demonstrate behaviours in line with the Thermo Fisher Mission, Leadership, Core Competencies and 4i Values.
• Appreciates and respects diversity, cultures, and norms in line with Thermo Fisher Inclusive Leadership Behaviours framework (fosters an environment where all team members feel valued, included, and are able to contribute their unique perspectives).
• Ensure compliance with cGMP, Quality Systems and training requirements are met in line with
  business need.