Sr. Director/General Manager Service Meat -- EMEA

Are you ready to shape the future of service in one of the world’s most innovative food-processing companies?

As General Manager Service for JBT Marel’s Meat EMEA Business Unit, you will take the lead in managing our service organization. In this strategic leadership role, you will steer teams, elevate service performance, and unlock new opportunities for growth and customer value.

In this role you are first and fore most responsible for the Service performance of our Meat EMEA Division. You drive service development around Meat specific solutions with special focus on customer value, reliability, yield, throughput, uptime and other value adding factors for the customer operations.

As our GM Service, you will be responsible for managing a Service department of 180 FTE, with homebase in Lichtenvoorde (NL) and including our Service Team in Roskilde (Denmark) and in the future in Kehl (Germany). The disciplines managed by the managers in your team are Field Service, (remote) Technical Support, Commercial Service, Program Management & Service Projects.

You are part of the Meat EMEA management team, managing the Meat EMEA business and IP, deliveries globally and executing our Long Reach Plan.

Main Tasks:

• Define and Drive Service Strategy: Set the strategic direction and performance targets for the Meat Industry’s service organization, ensuring alignment with corporate service strategy and broader business objectives.
• Lead Service Operations & Excellence: Oversee service execution, including field service, technical support, installation & commissioning and spare parts, ensuring operational excellence, high uptime, strong customer value, and continuous improvement.
• Grow the After-Sales Business: Identify market opportunities in spare parts, service contracts, and proactive service solutions, driving servitization and commercial growth across the Meat industry.
• Build and Develop a High-Performing Service Organization: Develop a skilled, motivated, and scalable service workforce; ensure competence development, organizational learning, and readiness to meet evolving customer and industry demands.
• Strengthen Serviceability & Product Support Capabilities: Ensure strong service and maintenance engineering capabilities—including documentation, installed base data, spare parts availability, pricing, and service offering design—to maximize serviceability of Meat solutions.
• Lead Strategic Change and Performance Management: Drive strategic and tactical change initiatives, analyze service performance, identify gaps and best practices, and ensure productivity, quality, and efficiency improvements across people, processes, and technology.

Who are we?

JBT Marel (John Bean Technologies + Marel) is the global leader in developing, manufacturing, and servicing processing systems for the food industry.

What’s in it for you?

• Freedom to take initiative and make a real impact in a growing global business
• A leading role in our organization and the opportunity to be part of our Management Team
• Competitive primary and secondary benefits, including a company car and Management Incentive bonus
• An environment of trust and respect with space to explore and fail
• A network of specialists who are always willing to help
• A healthy work-life balance and flexible working arrangements
• To get a career instead of a job!

What kind of a person are you?

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree, or equivalent professional experience
• Strong people leader and generalist who can motivate teams, build commitment, and effectively work and communicate with stakeholders at all levels of the organization.
• Strategic thinker with the ability to translate concepts into clear, actionable strategy.
• Experienced in change management, with a structured and process-disciplined approach.
• Commercially savvy, with entrepreneurial drive and a strong understanding of customer value, service quality, and customer satisfaction.
• Ability to deliver results against KPIs and drive continuous improvement across service operations.
• Experience with digitalization, preventive maintenance, smart asset management or connectivity is a plus.
• Excellent English communication skills (Dutch preferred), willingness to work from Lichtenvoorde three days per week and readiness to travel up to 15 – 20%