Plant Manager
Plant Manager - Aguascalientes, Mexico.
An outstanding opportunity to join a global manufacturing leader and make a lasting impact. Our client is seeking a Plant Manager to lead operations at their Aguascalientes facility. This is a critical leadership role that combines operational excellence, people leadership, and customer focus during a high-growth turnaround.
The successful candidate will drive transformation, full P&L responsibility, team development, and strategic alignment with U.S. corporate leadership. The Plant Manager will oversee 4 direct manager reports (Production, Quality, Engineering, Materials) within a plant of 270 employees and report to the Mexico Operations Director, with strong exposure to the GM and U.S. leadership.
Our client will only accept MX payroll and will give preference to local candidates.
Key Qualifications & Requirements
Demonstrated Competencies
Main Responsibilities
An outstanding opportunity to join a global manufacturing leader and make a lasting impact. Our client is seeking a Plant Manager to lead operations at their Aguascalientes facility. This is a critical leadership role that combines operational excellence, people leadership, and customer focus during a high-growth turnaround.
The successful candidate will drive transformation, full P&L responsibility, team development, and strategic alignment with U.S. corporate leadership. The Plant Manager will oversee 4 direct manager reports (Production, Quality, Engineering, Materials) within a plant of 270 employees and report to the Mexico Operations Director, with strong exposure to the GM and U.S. leadership.
Our client will only accept MX payroll and will give preference to local candidates.
Key Qualifications & Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Operations, Business, or similar; MBA a plus.
- 7+ years in manufacturing leadership (Plant Manager experience required).
- Strong turnaround and culture change track record.
- P&L experience with focus on conversion cost, cost of quality, and OTD.
- Hands-on Lean/Kaizen/CI leader with proven impact.
- Comfortable teaching teams “why process matters” (layouts, cycle times, tooling, escalation).
- Cross-cultural experience required (not Mexico-only companies).
- Customer-facing experience in high-quality/tolerance environments.
- ERP and Microsoft 365 skills.
- Injection molding experience preferred; automotive or similar complex industry a plus.
- Bilingual: Spanish & advanced English.
- Comfortable in complex, high-mix/high-volume manufacturing environments.
- Able to partner closely with HR, Finance, and Operations leadership.
- Strategic leader who can set direction and scale operations.
- Hands-on problem solver who drives results through Lean/CI.
- People-first leader – humble, collaborative, and focused on developing others.
- Customer-focused – protects scorecards and improves delivery/quality.
- Strong in change management and comfortable with transformation.
- Data-driven and results-oriented.
- Lead and coordinate daily operations, ensuring safety, quality, delivery, cost, and productivity targets are achieved.
- Own the plant P&L; improve conversion cost and cost of quality while preparing for rapid revenue growth.
- Drive operational excellence via Lean/Kaizen: standardize layouts, enforce cycle-time discipline, and elevate tooling care/PM.
- Establish robust launch processes and escalation routines; remediate gaps that create scrap, rework, and premium freight.
- Monitor and improve KPIs (conversion cost, cost of quality/scrap, inventory on hand, premium freight, on-time & in-full, customer scorecards, OEE/throughput).
- Partner closely with HR and Controller alongside Operations leadership to ensure aligned decision-making and transparent risk management.
- Strengthen customer relationships; meet high-tolerance, high-touch requirements with proactive quality and delivery management.
- Build, coach, and mentor the leadership team; upskill manufacturing engineering and frontline leaders on process thinking.
- Foster an inclusive, team-oriented culture rooted in humility, accountability, shared risk, urgency, and resilience.
- Ensure safety-first practices and regulatory compliance at all times.
Equal Opportunity Statement
Our client is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity and inclusion in the workplace. They prohibit discrimination and harassment of any kind based on race, color, sex, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, or any other protected characteristic as outlined by federal, state, or local laws.