PRIMARY PURPOSE:The Director, Customer Operations, leads customer service and order management across Formulated Solutions' sites. This leader owns the customer experience from order entry and confirmation through fulfillment communication, issue resolution, and post-shipment follow-up. The Director builds consistent processes, capable teams, and clear performance measures so customers receive accurate information, dependable commitments, and responsive service in a regulated contract manufacturing environment.
As the customer-facing link between Commercial, Planning, Operations, Logistics, Quality, and Finance, the Director makes customer requirements and service risks visible, secures timely decisions, and follows through on commitments. The role contributes customer demand and order insights to the company's planning process but does not own demand or supply planning, SIOP, procurement, inventory, warehousing, or manufacturing.
MAJOR DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:Customer service and order management- Lead customer service teams across sites; establish common standards for order entry, order confirmation, change management, customer inquiries, and documentation.
- Ensure orders, requested dates, product requirements, and customer instructions are captured accurately in the ERP and communicated promptly to the responsible teams.
- Oversee order status, backlog, open commitments, and exceptions; provide customers with timely, accurate updates on availability, schedules, shipments, and changes.
- Own accurate ERP updates for sales order changes and cancellations; reconcile exceptions with Planning, Finance, and account teams.
- Maintain a clear escalation path for delays, shortages, allocation decisions, and service failures; coordinate recovery plans with accountable functional owners and close the loop with customers.
- Partner with Commercial to support key customer relationships, business reviews, launches, and changes in demand while ensuring commitments reflect confirmed operational capability.
- Direct the key account managers reporting to this role in preparing and following up on quarterly business reviews (QBRs); align service metrics and commitments with Commercial for Bayer, BDF, Kenvue, and Haleon, and Reckitt as applicable.
Cross-functional execution and customer requirements- Work with Planning and Operations to confirm realistic promise dates and identify risks to customer commitments; bring customer priorities and order trends into SIOP and other planning forums.
- With Planning, reconcile forecasts when sales orders are created, changed, or canceled, including manual adjustments to prevent duplicate or stale ERP demand.
- Coordinate with Logistics and site teams on shipping information, customer delivery requirements, and exceptions; monitor delivery outcomes and escalate gaps.
- Partner with Quality to route product complaints, deviations, holds, and regulated documentation requests through the approved quality process; communicate approved updates to customers.
- Partner with Finance and Commercial to resolve pricing, order, shipment, billing, deduction, and documentation discrepancies; improve the order-to-cash handoff without assuming ownership of collections.
- Support new product introductions and technical transfers by defining order setup, customer communication, launch readiness, and service handoffs.
Service performance and process improvement- Develop dashboards with consistent definitions, baselines, targets, owners, and review cadence for on-time in-full delivery (OTIF), order accuracy, order acknowledgement time, response and resolution time, backlog, and customer escalations.
- Review OTIF by customer and product using 80/20 priorities; track safety stock targets and gaps with Planning and Supply Chain, escalating service risks.
- Use customer feedback and data to identify recurring issues; lead corrective actions within Customer Operations and coordinate improvements across functions, tracking results to closure.
- Improve ERP data quality, customer records, workflow controls, and standard operating procedures; train teams to use systems consistently and maintain audit-ready records.
- Provide executive leadership with concise visibility into service performance, major customer risks, recovery actions, and trends.
People leadership and compliance- Recruit, coach, develop, and retain a customer operations team; establish role clarity, service expectations, development plans, and succession depth.
- Create a culture of accountability, proactive communication, sound judgment, cross-site collaboration, and respectful customer relationships.
- Ensure customer communications, records, and practices meet applicable contracts, company policies, cGMP, confidentiality, and regulatory requirements in partnership with Quality and Legal as appropriate.
- Model Formulated Solutions' values: People First, Quality Obsessed, Customer Focused, Innovation Driven, and Ownership Mindset.
QUALIFICATIONS:Required- Bachelor's degree in business, operations, supply chain, or a related field, or equivalent relevant experience.
- At least 8 years of progressive experience in customer service, customer operations, order management, or a related function, including leadership of customer-facing teams.
- Experience supporting complex business-to-business manufacturing customers and resolving service issues across multiple functions.
- Ability to build processes, coach managers and staff, and improve measurable service outcomes across sites.
- Strong working knowledge of order-to-cash workflows and ERP systems; ability to analyze service data, maintain dashboards, and turn findings into action.
- Clear written and verbal communication, customer judgment, change leadership, and the ability to influence peers without direct authority.
- Strong analytical skills with proven ability to build dashboards, KPIs, and actionable insights.
- Ability to travel
Preferred- Experience in a CDMO, contract manufacturing, or regulated manufacturing environment, including OTC, pharmaceutical, medical device, beauty, or personal care products.
- Experience with NetSuite or a comparable ERP, new product launches, customer portals, and formal customer performance reviews.
- Experience standardizing customer service across multiple sites and improving OTIF, order accuracy, or customer satisfaction.
