Director Operational Excellence
Who we are
In Silal, our mandate is to diversify food sources and stimulate manufacturing and distribution in the agri-food sector in the UAE and beyond. As a part of ADQ, one of the region's largest holding companies, Silal is emerging as one of the sector's leading and most ambitious players.
Position Overview
The Director Operational Excellence will be responsible for driving end-to-end optimization of logistics, supply chain operations, and cost structures across the organization and its subsidiaries. Reporting directly to the Chief Operating Officer, this role will lead operational strategy, tender pricing, contract negotiations, financial discipline, and risk governance to ensure scalable, efficient, and cost-effective operations across markets.
This position requires a strong blend of operational strategy, logistics planning, analytics, financial acumen, cost control, and negotiation expertise, with the ability to influence multiple subsidiaries through both direct and indirect reporting lines
Position Responsibilities:
Key Responsibilities as Partnerships Lead will include the following:
- Contract Negotiation & Vendor Management
- Lead contract negotiation with carriers, shipping alliances, air freight partners, and warehouse providers to achieve optimal commercial and service outcomes.
- Leverage group-wide scale by integrating strengths across subsidiaries (e.g., one subsidiary's expertise in shipping alliances and another's strength in air freight) to drive pricing optimization and strategic partnerships.
- Oversee end-to-end contract management, ensuring compliance, performance tracking, and continuous improvement.
- Logistics Planning & Operational Coordination
- Drive logistics planning across sea, air, and warehousing operations with a strong focus on operational coordination and execution.
- Ensure practical, on-ground operational alignment between planning, procurement, and execution teams.
- Establish standardized processes, SLAs, and KPIs to improve reliability, visibility, and service levels.
- Lead close planning and demand analysis coordination with commercial teams through structured and recurring S&OP forums, ensuring alignment between demand, capacity, cost, and service objectives.
- Analytics, Tender Pricing & Cost Optimization
- Lead tender pricing initiatives using advanced analytics, benchmarking, and market intelligence.
- Apply data-driven insights to optimize network design, route planning, capacity utilization, and vendor selection.
- Partner closely with Finance to deliver sustainable OPEX improvements, margin enhancement, and cost efficiencies across subsidiaries.
- Own and sponsor enterprise-wide analytics models including cost-to-serve, category and segment profitability, and logistics cost drivers to support pricing, portfolio, and network decisions.
- Establish data governance standards for logistics and supply chain analytics, ensuring consistency, accuracy, and transparency across subsidiaries.
- Partner with subsidiaries to develop and deploy advanced analytics, predictive models, and AI-enabled tools to improve demand forecasting, volume planning, and cost-to-serve analysis.
- Operational Strategy & Network Integration
- Develop and execute operational strategy to support growth, acquisitions, and geographic expansion.
- Drive the adoption of AI-driven demand planning, scenario modeling, and forecasting tools across subsidiaries to support network design, inventory positioning, and cross-border logistics planning.
- Work closely with Digital, IT, and subsidiary teams to ensure data quality, model governance, and scalable deployment of predictive solutions across markets.
- Embed predictive insights into Control Tower workflows to enable proactive risk identification, exception management, and decision-making
- Risk Control, Governance & Control Tower
- Implement robust risk control frameworks to ensure uninterrupted availability of high-value products.
- Establish a centralized control tower for visibility, governance, and proactive issue management across the logistics network.
- Identify operational, financial, and supply risks early and drive mitigation plans.
- Challenge subsidiary-level decisions where misalignment with group economics, risk appetite, or service objectives exists
- Establish governance forums, escalation mechanisms, and decision frameworks to balance local agility with group-level optimization
- Utilize predictive analytics and AI models to anticipate demand volatility, supply disruptions, and capacity constraints, enabling early intervention and mitigation
- Stakeholder & Cross-Functional Collaboration
- Act as a key operational partner to Strategy, Growth, and Finance teams.
- Translate strategic objectives into executable operational plans and measurable outcomes.
- Influence senior leadership and subsidiary management through data-backed insights and strong executive presence.
- Digital Platforms, System Ownership & IT Partnership
- Act as business owner and executive sponsor for TMS, WMS, and end-to-end visibility platforms across the group.
- Define functional requirements, success metrics, and roadmaps to ensure platforms support optimization, cost control, service performance, and scalability.
- Partner closely with IT/Digital teams to translate operational needs into robust, scalable, and future-ready digital solutions.
- Drive adoption, standardization, and value realization from logistics and supply chain platforms across subsidiaries.
Position Requirements:
In order to be successful in this role, you should have
- 1218+ years in logistics, supply chain, or operations leadership
- Proven experience leading group-wide tenders and carrier negotiations
- Experience operating across international and multi-country networks (preferably GCC but not mandatory)
- Demonstrated delivery of material OPEX savings at scale
- Experience in matrix or group operating environments
As Silal's Talent Acquisition team, we encourage all interested candidates to review the key responsibilities and qualifications for each role and apply for any positions that match their skills and capabilities. All qualified applicants will be reviewed, however due to the high volume of applicants, only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.
