Director - Continuous Improvement

Recognized as aMilwaukee Journal SentinelTop Workplace for 14 consecutive years, including three years of being honored as number one! Join us at West Bend, where we believe that our associates are our greatest asset. We hire talented individuals who are conscientious, dedicated, customer focused, and able to build lasting relationships. We create and maintain an environment where you feel a sense of belonging and appreciation. Your diversity of thought, experience, and knowledge are valued. We're committed to fostering a welcoming culture, offering you opportunities for meaningful work and professional growth. More than a workplace, we celebrate our successes and take pride in serving our communities.

The Director Continuous Improvement will establish and mature the enterprise continuous improvement capability, governance framework, and operating model. The Director will enable business divisions to identify, prioritize, implement, and sustain improvements that strengthen efficiency, quality, associate experience, customer experience, and business outcomes.

In partnership with senior executives, functional leaders, and cross-functional teams, the Director will challenge the status quo, redesign workflows, reduce complexity, and build a culture of continuous improvement across the organization. This leader will serve as the head of the Continuous Improvement Center of Excellence (COE), setting enterprise methodology, governance, capability-development, coaching, and portfolio-oversight standards. The Director will partner with business leaders to embed ownership and execution within divisions while maintaining enterprise consistency, transparency, and alignment.

The internal deadline to apply is 11/13/2026. External applications will be accepted on a rolling basis while the position remains open.

What you will do:

Establish and lead the enterprise Continuous Improvement Center of Excellence (COE).
• Develop and maintain the enterprise continuous improvement methodology, standards, tools, templates, and governance framework.
• Lead, coach, and develop direct reports to manage performance and build future leadership capacity.
• Create a culture of accountability, engagement, continuous improvement, and high performance.
• Define and maintain enterprise standards for improvement opportunity identification, prioritization, measurement, and sustainment.
• Assess organizational continuous improvement maturity and develop capability-building roadmaps.
• Facilitate a Community of Practice to share best practices, lessons learned, tools, and success stories across divisions.
• Partner with division leaders to strengthen local ownership and accountability for continuous improvement.
• Provide leadership, coaching, standards, and oversight for the evaluation of current business processes, workflows, handoffs, controls, and decision points to identify inefficiencies, duplication, bottlenecks, risk, and opportunities for improvement.
• Develop and execute a continuous improvement strategy aligned to the organization's business priorities, operating model, customer expectations, and transformation goals.
• Establish standards for the use of data, performance metrics, process mapping, root cause analysis, Lean Six Sigma, and other improvement methodologies and coach leaders in their effective application. Challenge existing ways of working in a constructive and collaborative manner, helping leaders and teams move from legacy practices to more effective, scalable, and future-focused processes.
• Lead change management efforts to support adoption of new processes, including stakeholder engagement, communication, training, readiness planning, and reinforcement.
• Establish key performance indicators and reporting mechanisms to measure improvement impact, including efficiency gains, cost savings, cycle time reduction, quality improvement, risk reduction, and experience outcomes.
• Build continuous improvement capability across the organization by coaching leaders, developing practical tools, and creating repeatable methods for process review and redesign.
• Establish and monitor standards for improvement benefit validation, sustainment, and accountability.
• Provide regular reporting and recommendations to executive leadership regarding enterprise improvement performance, capability maturity, and strategic opportunities.
• Create governance and prioritization routines to ensure improvement opportunities are evaluated, sequenced, resourced, and connected to enterprise priorities.
• Serve as a trusted advisor to senior leadership on operational effectiveness, process modernization, and opportunities to simplify work while strengthening execution.

This position offers a hybrid work schedule. Candidates who are located within 50 miles of a West Bend office location will work a hybrid schedule for collaboration days, team meetings or other in-person events. The position can be based in West Bend, WI.

Preferred experience:

• 10+ years of progressive experience in continuous improvement, business transformation, operations, process excellence, organizational effectiveness, or related leadership roles.
• Demonstrated experience leading large-scale, cross-functional process improvement initiatives with measurable business impact.
• Knowledge of process improvement methodologies such as Lean, Six Sigma, Kaizen, value stream mapping, root cause analysis, process mapping, and performance measurement.
• Experience working with senior leaders to evaluate business processes, influence decisions, and drive change across functions.
• Proven ability to translate complex operational challenges into practical, actionable improvement plans.
• Experience in insurance, financial services, or another highly regulated industry preferred.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in business, operations, organizational effectiveness, technology, or a related field required; advanced degree preferred.
• Lean Six Sigma Green Belt or Black Belt certification preferred.

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The salary range for this position is $157,900 - $197,375

The actual base pay offered to the successful candidate will be based on multiple factors, including but not limited to job-related knowledge/skills, experience, business needs, geographical location, and internal equity. Compensation decisions are made by West Bend and are dependent upon the facts and circumstances of each position and candidate.

West Bend offers a comprehensive benefit plan including but not limited to:

• Medical & Prescription Insurance

• Health Savings Account

• Dental Insurance

• Vision Insurance

• Short and Long Term Disability

• Flexible Spending Accounts

• Life and Accidental Death & Disability

• Accident and Critical Illness Insurance

• Employee Assistance Program

• 401(k) Plan with Company Match

• Pet Insurance

• Paid Time Off. Standard first year PTO is 17 days, pro-rated based on month of hire. Enhanced PTO may be available for experienced candidates

• Bonus eligible based on performance

• West Bend will comply with any applicable state and local laws regarding employee leave benefits, including, but not limited to providing time off pursuant to the Colorado Healthy Families and Workplaces Act for Colorado employees, in accordance with its plans and policies.

West Bend provides equal employment opportunities to all associates and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, and promotion.