Operations Director (Beef)

Position Summary

We are seeking an experienced and commercially minded Director of Operations to lead and optimize day-to-day operations across our beef business. The successful candidate will have a strong understanding of the U.S. beef supply chain and a proven track record of delivering improvements in operational performance, productivity, quality, safety, cost control, animal welfare, and profitability.

This role will provide strategic and hands-on leadership across operational teams, working closely with senior management, production, procurement, sales, finance, quality assurance, maintenance, logistics, and supply-chain functions.

The Director of Operations will be responsible for building a culture of operational excellence while ensuring the business consistently meets customer, regulatory, financial, and production requirements.

Key Responsibilities

1. Operational Leadership

• Lead all day-to-day operational activities across the business.
• Develop and execute annual and long-term operational strategies aligned with company objectives.
• Establish clear operating standards, KPIs, targets, and accountability across all operational functions.
• Drive continuous improvement in throughput, labor efficiency, yield, utilization, downtime, and overall operating performance.
• Identify operational constraints and develop practical solutions to improve capacity and profitability.
• Build a high-performing operations leadership team and develop succession plans for key positions.

2. Beef Production & Processing

• Oversee beef production and/or processing activities, depending on business structure.
• Optimize cattle flow, production scheduling, plant utilization, yields, and product quality.
• Ensure operating practices support maximum carcass and product value.
• Monitor key production metrics including:
  • Head processed/received
  • Throughput
  • Carcass and boxed-beef yields
  • Labor hours per head/unit
  • Downtime
  • Product loss and waste
  • Conversion costs
  • Quality and customer specifications
• Work closely with procurement and supply-chain teams to ensure appropriate cattle and raw-material availability.

3. Food Safety & Quality

• Ensure operations consistently meet or exceed all applicable USDA-FSIS, food-safety, quality, and customer requirements.
• Maintain a strong food-safety culture throughout the organization.
• Partner with Quality Assurance and Food Safety leadership on HACCP, sanitation, traceability, recalls, corrective actions, and audit readiness.
• Ensure appropriate documentation, standard operating procedures, and control systems are maintained.
• Drive root-cause analysis and corrective/preventive actions when quality or food-safety issues arise.

4. Animal Welfare

• Ensure the highest standards of cattle handling and animal welfare throughout applicable operations.
• Maintain compliance with company policies, customer requirements, industry standards, and applicable regulations.
• Monitor animal handling, transportation, receiving, processing, and related procedures.
• Promote a culture where animal welfare is treated as a core operational responsibility.

5. Health & Safety

• Establish and maintain a strong workplace safety culture.
• Ensure compliance with applicable OSHA requirements and company safety policies.
• Track and improve safety KPIs, including recordable incidents, lost-time incidents, near misses, and corrective actions.
• Partner with management to identify hazards and implement effective risk-reduction programs.
• Hold operational leaders accountable for safety performance.

6. Financial & Cost Management

• Own operational budgets and cost-control initiatives.
• Work closely with Finance to develop budgets, forecasts, capital plans, and operational business cases.
• Identify opportunities to reduce conversion costs without compromising safety, quality, animal welfare, or customer service.
• Analyze labor, maintenance, utilities, supplies, logistics, and other operating expenses.
• Evaluate capital investments and operational improvement projects based on ROI and strategic value.

7. People & Leadership

• Lead, coach, and develop operational managers and supervisors.
• Establish clear expectations, performance standards, and accountability.
• Build strong relationships across hourly and salaried teams.
• Support recruitment, retention, training, and succession planning.
• Develop frontline leadership capability and create a culture of continuous improvement.
• Promote effective communication across shifts and departments.

8. Continuous Improvement

• Implement a structured continuous-improvement program across operations.
• Use data and operational KPIs to identify opportunities and prioritize initiatives.
• Apply Lean, Six Sigma, TPM, 5S, root-cause analysis, or other appropriate improvement methodologies.
• Lead cross-functional projects designed to improve productivity, quality, yield, safety, and profitability.
• Establish a culture where problems are identified early and solved systematically.

9. Maintenance & Asset Reliability

• Partner with Maintenance leadership to maximize equipment reliability and uptime.
• Develop preventive and predictive maintenance strategies.
• Monitor equipment downtime and recurring failures.
• Support capital expenditure planning and modernization of production assets.
• Ensure facilities, equipment, refrigeration, utilities, and other critical infrastructure are maintained to appropriate standards.

10. Supply Chain & Logistics

• Work collaboratively with procurement, transportation, warehousing, and sales teams to optimize product flow.
• Improve inventory management, scheduling, transportation efficiency, and customer fulfillment.
• Identify supply-chain risks and establish appropriate contingency plans.
• Ensure operational decisions support customer requirements and overall business profitability.