Unique opportunity for an experienced Operations leader in the food industry to join the Lily’s Toaster Grills Leadership Team and lead operations to support rapid business growth.

Lily’s Toaster Grills

Our vision is to bring homemade quality and care from the freezer aisle to every household in America. We provide our customers with the highest quality, best tasting, most convenient frozen sandwiches possible. We give back to the community - donating 1% of the sandwiches we produce to families in need. Golden and crispy on the outside, gooey and cheesy on the inside, there is nothing better than a Lily's Toaster Grills sandwich.

Founded in 2019, Lily’s Toaster Grills is a high-growth frozen food company headquartered in Denver, Colorado. The Company manufactures and distributes branded frozen food products in grocery and club stores throughout the U.S. and has scaled rapidly over the last 5 years. You can now find Lily’s products in over 14,000 grocery store locations, including at most major US food retailers.

What You Will Do

Reporting to the CEO, the VP of Operations will lead operations strategy and planning and drive day-to-day execution. The VP of Operations will be responsible for scaling capacity to meet growing demand, achieving cost/margin and quality goals, and enabling new product expansion. S/he will manage all matters relating to Lily’s Toaster Grills’ core operations – manufacturing, warehousing, procurement, logistics/fulfillment, engineering, maintenance, quality, and food/people safety. This leader will build on a strong foundation to optimize processes, systems, and teams to achieve Lily’s Toaster Grills’ quantity, quality, and cost objectives. As a member of the company’s Leadership Team, the VP of Operations will achieve results by embracing the Company’s culture and values:

● Never compromise on safety: The safety of our people, our product, and our consumer comes first. Period.
● Bias to action: Perfection is our enemy. We are strategic and analytical, but not afraid to make decisions and act quickly.
● Make each other better: Building our business is a team sport. Our collective success requires that we support, challenge, and celebrate one another.
● Have fun building: We are passionate about building our company together and it is a ton of fun.
● Spread goodness: We are always looking for ways to wow our consumers and to help families in need.

Responsibilities:

Align operations strategy and plans to overall company strategy, scaling the company to a best-in-class operator at $100M+ sales.
Lead departmental strategic planning, budget preparation, and reporting to create transparency and ensure accountability.
Lead orchestration of all day-to-day operations including establishing the daily/weekly/monthly planning and review cadence, defining KPIs and establishing performance dashboards, and working closely with key managers and team members on execution.
Work cross functionally to evaluate all current operational processes and develop and lead execution of a portfolio of strategic initiatives to improve safety, quality, delivery, team member engagement, and productivity.
Define and implement processes/cost improvement initiatives to drive down unit costs and deliver manufacturing margin targets.
Implement and manage processes and systems for the ordering of raw materials that minimizes stockholding quantities while ensuring zero interruption to production plans.
Establish and manage processes and supporting systems to ensure top-tier 100% OTIF performance while optimizing finished goods inventory levels.
Continually evaluate overall procurement and supply chain practices to drive improvement and elevate Lily’s capabilities to best-in-class.
Guide the S&OP (Sales/Demand and Operations Planning) process and implementation of supporting tools and/or systems to integrate sales forecasts with the purchasing, production, and fulfillment system.
Ensure that operations and quality processes and standards are compliant with all local and national regulatory standards and are continually enhanced – never compromise on quality and safety.
Lead development of the long-term capital investment strategy, partnering with cross-functional leaders to solve for commercial, operational, and margin requirements.
Drive on-time, on-budget capital project management.
Negotiate and review contracts and agreements with vendors, suppliers and subcontractors.
Meet or exceed approved budgets or forecasts.
Mentor and motivate staff to provide continued professional growth while optimizing productivity and being a champion for accountability and a continuous improvement/lean manufacturing culture.

Who You Are

You are a confident and humble servant leader with proven expertise in empowering, leading, coaching, mentoring, and developing high-performance teams. You thrive in a “roll up your sleeves” work environment, demonstrating flexibility and leading change. You are an exceptional communicator and problem-solver, inspiring and managing teams across multiple departments to solve complex business challenges. You think strategically about how to address opportunities to grow the business to its full potential. Others would describe you as having unquestioned integrity, high ethical standards, and professionalism in how you lead your teams, partner with your peers, and work with your managers.

Qualifications:

15+ years of manufacturing, operations, and process engineering management experience within the food manufacturing industry.
Experience in running a food manufacturing facility and managing third party co-manufacturers required.
Demonstrated experience in implementing best practices across the food manufacturing system from procurement and warehousing to manufacturing and logistics.
Experience leading the planning, site identification, design, and build of production facilities and/or capacity expansion projects.
Significant business building and change management experience at small and/or medium-sized private businesses.
Strong project management experience.
Proficiency with Microsoft Office and Oracle NetSuite.

Benefits

● $180,000 - $230,000 base salary, dependent on experience
● Participation in Lily’s annual performance incentive program
● Company-sponsored health, dental, and vision programs
● 401(k) retirement plan with employer match
● Paid PTO and company holidays
● Reimbursement for personal technology use