Chanelle Pharma – Head of Engineering

• Contract role
• 6-12 months
• Flexibility on days/hours (3/4 days a week)

Role Overview

The Head of Engineering is a senior, fully onsite leadership role responsible for modernising and strengthening all engineering operations at our clients site. The position oversees approximately 30 engineers and technicians across maintenance, facilities, and capital projects. The successful candidate will play a pivotal role in improving production uptime, enhancing equipment reliability, and enabling faster delivery of products to market.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead and modernise engineering operations across the site.
• Manage a team of ~30 engineers and technicians across maintenance, facilities, and projects.
• Increase equipment and utility availability from current levels (~50–60%) to industry standards (80–90%).
• Enhance production uptime and reliability while supporting delivery performance.
• Oversee complex multi-product equipment with frequent line changeovers and cleaning validations.
• Drive reliability engineering, preventative maintenance, and continuous improvement initiatives.
• Support OTIF (on-time, in-full) performance across 15+ manufacturing lines.
• Operate within a non-sterile environment working with 80+ molecules.

Candidate Profile

• Demonstrated leadership experience managing engineering teams in manufacturing environments with multi-product operations and frequent changeovers.
• Strong influencing and diplomatic skills; able to work within a traditional culture while driving transformation.
• Expertise in equipment reliability, preventative maintenance, and operational excellence within regulated environments.
• Comfortable leading within a longer-term transformation horizon (5–6 years) under private equity ownership.
• High emotional intelligence, balancing collaborative leadership with appropriate assertiveness and sound judgement on issue escalation.
• Ideally aligned with leadership DISC traits: high Influence (I), Steadiness (S), and moderate Dominance (D).

Strategic Context

• Our client is private equity-backed with a 5–6 year transformation and growth horizon.
• Strategic focus shifting toward animal health R&D, with reduced emphasis on human health R&D.
• Engineering modernisation is critical to increasing production efficiency, equipment availability, and delivery performance—directly impacting revenue and scalability.
• Success requires a leader capable of elevating standards, systems, culture, and technical capabilities while ensuring operational continuity.