Director Seed Quality

Taken en verantwoordelijkheden

Enza Zaden is looking for a Director Seed Quality. In this role you will be responsible for overseeing the global seed quality control testing for seed health, seed germination and seed disease prevention for Enza Zaden. Your primary role will involve developing and executing the strategic plan to ensure the overall seed health quality control and the seed disease prevention programs across all vegetable crop segments. This includes the development and implementation of new automation, techniques, and processes, as well as optimizing resource utilization.

What are you going to do?

As the Director Seed Quality at Enza Zaden, you will have a multifaceted role with diverse responsibilities aimed at ensuring the highest standards of seed quality control and testing across the organization. You will lead the development and implementation of the Global Quality Testing & Control strategy, and be responsible for the optimal performance of the global seed quality testing operations. The Seed Quality Control Department at Enza Zaden includes the Seed Health Testing Lab(s), Seed Germination Testing Lab(s), Seed Health and Disease Prevention Department, and leading the cross-functional Global Quality Protocol Platform. Your accountability extends to leading, motivating, coaching, and developing team members, ensuring an optimal organizational structure and team dynamics.

You will ensure that the Global Quality Testing & Control strategy delivers quality seed that meets the current and future needs of Enza Zaden's customers. This involves establishing a global network and clear cross-functional organizational structure, facilitating the exchange of best practices, and delivering the program results. You will work with both internal and external partners from industry and institutes to collaborate on global seed quality control, seed hygiene research and development of new technologies.

Your role is accountable for the global seed quality testing operations, both in-house and outsourced, with a particular focus on compliance with Seed Quality and Health, Safety & Environment regulations. You are responsible to secure the right capacity and capability for testing and related research facilities. Collaboration with several stakeholders such as Seed Research, Quality Assurance, Regulatory affairs, Facilities and Research and Development is essential to ensure high standards in our complex global network.

Your leadership will extend to active participation in business processes and relevant management teams, as well as leading international, multidisciplinary programs. In this role you will report to our Chief Operating Officer and are part of the global seed operations management team.

Overall, your role will be fundamental to maintaining Enza Zaden's reputation for excellence in seed quality and health, driving continuous improvement, innovation, and collaboration across the organization!

Your Power

To be successful in this role, you will need a strong background in leading global (seed) quality control organisations with experience in designing and delivering product quality testing with modern techniques to deliver value to the end customer. You are experienced in leading and developing high performing teams and leading operational excellence in quality testing. You should also have excellent communication skills and be able to engage effectively with internal stakeholders and external parties. In addition, the geographical scope of this role is global with the home location in Enkhuizen and up to 20% travel.

In short, you are or have: 

• At least 15 years of relevant experience of which minimum 10 years in (people) senior management position in a strongly regulated production or laboratory environment, such as agriculture, food or pharma and preferably in seed quality control;

• Educational background in a relevant technical field such as microbiology, food science,  plant science (minimum Master’s degree university);

• High collaborative working skills and leading processes with teams of different managerial levels;  

• Excellent communication and presentation skills in English and preferably also Dutch;

• Ability to analyze and work with complex problems.

Our Power

Enza Zaden is a vegetable breeding company that develops vegetable varieties. And produces and sells its seeds all over the world. To explain to you properly (and as briefly as possible) what we do, we have created an animation.

The goal of our work? Giving everyone worldwide access to healthy and varied vegetables. With more than 2,500 passionate colleagues around the world, we work together every day on tomorrow's vegetables.

Would you like to know more about Enza Zaden as an employer? Then take a look at the Careers & Learning page or check out our page on LinkedIn.

 
How do we convince you to join us? We offer: 

• A purposeful position for the real research fanatic that want to make real impact. You will contribute to our vision of granting people anywhere in the world access to healthy, varied vegetables. 

• A challenging and motivated data-driven organization, where every stakeholder recognizes the great importance of research. 

• Room for new initiatives and ideas. Our opportunistic and pragmatic culture provides always open doors for your ideas! 

• Pleasant colleagues, fun activities and an ambitious and informal culture. 

• A market conform salary depending on your experience. 

• 26 vacation days with the possibility to buy additional ones; 

• A laptop and phone; 

• Flexible working policy, where you are partly in the office to work with colleagues or can do focus work at home. 

Interested? Send your application to our Recruitment Department via the Apply button.

More information:

Marjolijn Woudstra

Senior Recruitment Business Partner

m.woudstra@enzazaden.nl

Acquisition in response to this vacancy is not appreciated