Operational Excellence Lead

Operational Excellence Lead

Job description

Your Mission

You will be setting the gold standard for how we execute, measure, and optimize performance across all departments. By aligning our operational teams, process management and systems, you’ll transform efficiency into a competitive advantage—tracking output, eliminating bottlenecks, and driving measurable results.

Key Responsibilities

Optimize the existing operational workflow by applying Lean Six Sigma principles to drive continuous improvements across our departments including Quality, Design, and Sourcing.

• Take ownership of the operational improvements on a daily basis to adhere to delivery timelines of our order flow.
• Simultaneously setting out a road map for operational improvements across the different departments through synergies across departments, digitalization through our proprietary tooling, reporting and insights.
• Drive the weekly order flow engagements across operational departments to steer for shorter- and longer-term improvements.
• Take ownership of the order flow pipeline of work, from a volume, quality and timeline perspective. Do this through a data driven approach and strategy to advise and steer internal stakeholders on optimizing the overall workflow.

Job requirements

What You Bring

• 7+ years as a Project Manager or Process Manager, with expertise in project management, process management, logistics, and quality control (manufacturing, tech, or consulting background preferred)
• Bachelor's degree
• Nice to have: Lean Six Sigma certification.
• Proven track record of optimizing operations in scaling organizations (startup/scale-up experience is a plus).
• Experience with retail and/or import-export businesses.
• Data-Driven Mindset: Fluency in KPIs, dashboards, and process improvement frameworks (Lean Six Sigma, Agile).
• Leadership Presence: Ability to influence stakeholders at all levels, from COO to frontline teams.
• Languages: English (required); Dutch (advantage).

Why Join Us?

• Impact: Shape the backbone of a growing international company.
• Autonomy: Own the ops playbook with support from the COO.

Who we are?

Karsten International develops a wide range of products for daily use, from the latest gadgets to sustainable beauty products. You name it, we make it. In addition to working hard and delivering quality, enjoyment and collegiality are our top priorities. The team consists of driven product developers, sales experts, logistics talents, online marketing specialists and graphic designers. Thanks to a broad international network and more than ten years of experience, we are winning the hearts of consumers all over the world with our products. You will be given every opportunity to contribute to this. To ensure that you stay in top condition, we offer you:

• Space for personal growth and professional development
• An excellent pension scheme
• Travel allowance
• 13th month
• 8% holiday pay
• An extensive lunch
• Fresh fruit
• Freshly ground coffee
• Boot camp
• Yoga
• Lease a bike option
• OpenUp for mental health
• Karsten football team
• Massage in the workplace
• Discount on cool products
• Fun company outings
• An Instagram-worthy and easily accessible office in Amsterdam
• A great team of colleagues