Global Lean Supply Chain Director

Tenneco is one of the world’s leading designers, manufacturers and marketers of automotive

products for original equipment and aftermarket customers. Through our DRiV, Performance

Solutions, Clean Air and Powertrain business groups, Tenneco is driving advancements in

global mobility by delivering technology solutions for light vehicle, commercial truck, offhighway, industrial, motorsport and the aftermarket.

In this role, you’ll join a global team united by tenacious execution and a deep emotional allegiance to our mission. You’ll be empowered to move fast, think big, and deliver lasting impact in a culture that values loyalty, courage, and high performance. Are you ready to drive what’s next?

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

1. Lean Leader: You are the champ for the global Lean strategy for supply chain, influencing and aligning a network of CI Senior Managers and Lean Managers across ~130 plants in our Powertrain, Clean Air, and Champion Ignition businesses. Through coaching and discipline, you raise the technical level of Lean expertise worldwide.
2. Lean Sensei: You are the recognized technical authority for Lean practices in the supply chain. From daily management, visual management, 5S, SMED, kaizen, and standard work, to structured problem-solving, value stream mapping, and connected flows, you guide teams with depth, clarity, and credibility.
3. Value Stream Architect: You coach plants on how to map and improve the extended value stream end to end, from customers to suppliers, with a focus on performance. With your coaching and guidance, plants will succeed as they cross the Kaizen roadmap bridge from the current to the future value stream map. By reducing the value stream length and variability, you increase flexibility, lower inventory levels, improve logistics efficiency, and raise customer service levels.
4. Shop Floor Champion: You focus on where the work happens, driving sustainable improvements in material handling, inventory flow, and daily disciplined execution. Safety is always the starting point and foundation of your work. You also design and deploy visual management systems that make performance visible and enable rapid response to abnormalities.
5. P3 Tenneco Standard Integrator: You accelerate P3 maturity and lead MMOG LE assessments, ensuring Lean practices are codified, assessed, and embedded into the P3 Tenneco Standard (our operating system). You secure the sustainability of improvements by coordinating global tracking of initiatives, capturing benefits, and sharing best practices to lock in results.
6. Regional CI Senior Managers and Plant CI/Lean Leaders: You will influence, coach, and challenge a large global community of Lean practitioners. By providing standards, technical depth, and hands-on training, you will raise their capability, discipline, and impact.
7. Plant Operations Teams: You will guide them in applying Lean fundamentals on the shop floor; material handling, safety, visual management, and problem solving; embedding daily discipline and sustainable results.
8. Regional Supply Chain Directors and Operations Leaders: You will integrate Lean and CI practices into broader supply chain and operations execution, ensuring value stream improvements translate into measurable business performance.
9. Corporate Functions and P3 Tenneco Standard Team: You will align with Quality, Procurement, HR/Training, and the P3 team to ensure Lean practices are standardized, assessments are robust, and maturity is accelerated consistently across ~130 plants.
10. Lean at Private Equity Speed: You will prove that Lean transformations, traditionally slow in bureaucratic public environments, can be accelerated in a fast-paced private equity world when the right culture, the right team players, and the right mindset come together, fast.
11. Global Lean Discipline: You will embed Lean as a common language across the supply chain, ensuring daily management, visual management, problem solving, and connected flow are practiced with rigor and deliver measurable results.
12. Breakthrough Performance: By reducing value stream length and variability, you will create more flexible flows, less inventory, better logistics and warehousing efficiency, and higher service levels.
13. Every Member a Problem Solver: You will leave behind a stronger generation of Lean leaders, raising the technical level of hundreds of CI practitioners and creating a global community of problem solvers driven by logical thinking.
14. P3 Tenneco Standard and MMOG LE Maturity: You will accelerate P3 maturity and embed MMOG LE standards, ensuring Lean and supply chain excellence are locked into the P3 Tenneco Standard with results sustained over time.

Minimum Requirements

Education:  Bachelor’s degree in engineering, supply chain, operations, or related field; Master’s preferred (MBA a strong plus).

Skills

• Regional / Global Leadership: Proven success in influencing and aligning large, diverse groups of Lean and CI leaders across multiple regions to drive common goals and measurable impact.
• Technical Mastery: Strong background as a Lean Sensei, with deep expertise in daily management, visual management, 5S, SMED, standard work, problem solving, value stream mapping, and connected flow.
• Value Stream and Results Delivery: Demonstrated ability to reduce value stream length and variability, improving flexibility, service levels, logistics, and warehousing efficiency while lowering inventory, with a track record of sustaining results through governance, metrics, and benefit capture.
• Team Builder: Track record of raising the technical level of large communities of CI practitioners, building a global bench of Lean leaders through coaching, training, and hands-on development.
• Operating Standard Development: Experience shaping and accelerating the maturity of structured operating standards, ensuring Lean practices are codified, assessed, and embedded into daily management at scale.
• Lean Expertise: Certified or formally trained in Lean principles, with strong application experience in shop floor execution, CI methods, and supply chain improvement. Six Sigma and APICS certifications are highly valued.
• Technical Depth: Proven mastery of Lean tools, including daily management, visual management, 5S, SMED, standard work, value stream mapping, problem solving, and connected flow.
• Global Perspective: Experience working across multiple regions and cultures, with the ability to adapt Lean deployment to different environments while maintaining global consistency.
• Change Leadership: Strong communication and influencing skills, capable of engaging senior executives as well as shop floor teams to accelerate Lean maturity.
• Operating Standard Contribution: Demonstrated ability to shape, embed, and mature structured operating standards such as the P3 Tenneco Standard at scale.
• Languages: Fluent English; additional languages such as Spanish, German, Chinese, Hindi, Portuguese, or Polish are highly valued.
• Team Leadership: Ability to quickly build, mentor, and elevate large communities of Lean and CI practitioners worldwide, creating a pipeline of future Lean leaders.

Equal opportunity employer as to all protected groups, including protected veterans and individuals with disabilities.