Global PMO & Improvement Leader, Taste

About the role

Within IFF's Taste Business Unit, Operational Excellence covers Continuous Improvement, Digital Operations, AI and analytics, Automation, Smart manufacturing, Supply Chain Excellence and other strategic operations priorities. As Global PMO Manager, Operational Excellence, you will own the governance and management system for the global Operational Excellence portfolio and its link to broader Operations priorities. This is a strategic, portfolio-governance role where project and workstream leaders stay accountable for delivery, and you work with Operations, Supply Chain, Finance, Engineering, Quality, EHS, Procurement, IT and site leadership teams. The role can be based in Asturias, Barcelona, Gebze (Turkey) or Skofja Vas (Slovenia), with hybrid arrangements depending on the country.

Key responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end governance framework for the global Operational Excellence portfolio and maintain a consolidated portfolio of initiatives, programs and commitments across functions, regions and sites.
• Run a structured demand-intake and evaluation process, then prioritize initiatives by strategic contribution, business value, urgency, feasibility, resource capacity, risk and scalability, and turn approved priorities into a multi-year roadmap.
• Consolidate plans, milestones and schedules into a single roadmap, and show resource requirements, capacity constraints and competing demands across functions, regions and sites.
• Work with Finance on business cases, budgets, forecasts, CAPEX/OPEX, savings classification and benefit tracking, and monitor performance against approved baselines.
• Define portfolio-health criteria, identify emerging risks and constraints, track decisions and corrective actions, and connect Operational Excellence governance with broader Operations priorities.
• Maintain a single source of truth for portfolio status, build executive dashboards and analytics, capture lessons learned and simplify PMO processes.

Required profile

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Operations, Supply Chain, Business Administration, Finance, Project Management or a related discipline.
• 7+ years of experience in PMO, portfolio management, program governance, transformation office or enterprise planning roles.
• Demonstrated experience governing a complex portfolio in a global, multi-site, matrixed Operations or manufacturing environment.
• Proven experience in financial and value governance, including business cases, budgets, forecasts, savings tracking and benefit validation.
• Excellent written and verbal communication in English.

Required skills

• Strong knowledge of portfolio intake, prioritization, integrated roadmaps, governance design, resource and capacity planning, risk and dependency management, and executive reporting.
• Analytical capability and experience with portfolio-management, reporting, dashboarding and data-visualization tools.
• Stakeholder management and influencing skills, with the confidence to challenge senior leaders.

What stands out: experience establishing or maturing a global PMO, across several Operational Excellence domains, and PMP, Lean Six Sigma or comparable certification. Flexible hybrid or remote working arrangements, depending on location.