General Manager - Manufacturing Operations
Ontario, Canada
Confidential search conducted by Waterstone Human Capital
The Opportunity
This role owns operating performance, safety, and culture for a facility spanning heavy manufacturing and upfitting operations. This role requires genuinely collaborative, influence-based leadership rather than direct command of every function for optimal success.
What You'll Do
- Own day-to-day operating leadership, driving profitable growth in revenue and margin
- Build and lead high-performing local leadership teams; create succession plans and hold leaders accountable
- Partner closely with on-site engineering, purchasing, and finance staff (centrally reporting) to drive alignment without direct authority over those functions
- Set and achieve financial targets and KPIs with finance and sales
- Create and maintain a safety-first, zero-harm culture for the site
- Drive continuous improvement in plant efficiency, quality, and throughput
- Champion employee engagement and community presence as a direct leadership responsibility
- Oversee local sales-operations coordination, quoting/pricing, and customer escalations with the commercial team
What We're Looking For
- Proven operations leadership in manufacturing - heavy fabrication, specialty vehicle, or adjacent manufacturing preferred
- A track record leading through influence and cross-functional partnership, not direct control of every function
- Strong record building engaged, low-turnover teams
- Solid financial/KPI fluency and comfort partnering closely with finance
- A hands-on, visible leadership style
What's Offered
- Base salary in the range of approximately $150,000 depending on experience, plus incentives and full benefits
- A genuinely high-engagement culture with low voluntary turnover
- A fast, low-bureaucracy environment with direct access to senior leadership
This search is being conducted on a confidential basis. All applications and inquiries will be held in strict confidence.
