APAC Supply Chain & S&OP Leader

This role has overall responsibility for managing the supply chain across the Asia Pacific region. DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES: • Own and drive a disciplined, region-wide Sales & Operations Planning process, ensuring alignment across demand, supply, inventory, and capacity planning. • Identify, prioritize, and lead continuous improvement initiatives across forecasting accuracy, production scheduling, inventory optimization, and supplier supply planning. • Lead the exceptions management process, proactively identifying risks, gaps, and constraints, and enabling timely, fact-based trade-off decisions with key stakeholders. • Structure, facilitate, and lead regional S&OP governance and review meetings, ensuring strong process discipline, accountability, and compliance. • Establish, monitor and track key operational performance indicators (KPIs) including inventory health, service levels, forecast accuracy, and supply reliability. • Drive actions to identify, reduce, and eliminate excess and obsolete (E&O) inventory, improving working capital efficiency. • Champion and model Gates’ core values, continuous improvement mindset, and operational excellence culture across the region. KEY RELATIONSHIPS: • Partner with the commercial organization to develop robust processes, systems, and tools that enable accurate product family and SKU-level demand forecasting. • Collaborate with plant/site operations teams to translate demand forecasts into executable production plans, capacity plans, and inventory targets. • Work closely with the sourcing and procurement teams to ensure supply planning, supplier capacity, and inventory strategies remain aligned with customer demand. • Partner with global and regional S&OP leaders to align strategy, governance standards, best practices, and exceptions management. • Collaborate with IT and digital teams to define, develop, and implement the regional S&OP systems roadmap, analytics, and tool strategy. MEASURES OF PERFORMANCE: • Regional KPIs (Delivery, Inventory and Logistics cost, Lean maturity) • Delivery of improved S&OP projects and processed with priority • Best Practice/Idea Replication • Benchmark Comparisons (Internal & External) for World Class Performance • Achievement of regional operational KPIs, including delivery performance, inventory turns, logistics cost, service levels, and Lean maturity progression. • Successful delivery of priority S&OP transformation and continuous improvement initiatives, with measurable business impact. • Replication and scaling of best practices, innovations, and process improvements across sites and regions. • Performance against internal and external world-class benchmarks, ensuring continuous competitiveness and operational excellence. • Improvement in forecast accuracy, inventory optimization, and supply responsiveness. QUALIFICATIONS: • Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, Industrial Engineering, Supply Chain, or related discipline, with a minimum of 10 years of progressive experience in operations, engineering, or supply chain leadership, including direct ownership of S&OP. • Master’s degree preferred. • Experience in automotive or complex manufacturing systems is highly desirable. • Strong hands-on experience in Lean Manufacturing, continuous improvement, and operational excellence methodologies. REQUIRED SKILLS: • Demonstrated project and program management expertise, including cross-functional coordination, communication, execution, governance, and post-implementation review. • Deep knowledge of Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, statistical analysis, and structured problem-solving methodologies. • Strong analytical and systems-thinking capabilities, with the ability to translate data into actionable business decisions. • Highly results-oriented, with a track record of driving measurable business improvements and scalable process solutions. • Proven ability to influence, coach, and align stakeholders across multiple organizational levels, functions, and geographies. • Excellent executive-level communication, presentation, and facilitation skills, both verbal and written. • Strong change leadership skills with the ability to drive adoption of new processes, systems, and behaviors. WORKING LOCATION: Jurong East, Industrial Business Park #J-18808-Ljbffr