Validation Director

The Director of Validation leads the NAO validation organization and is responsible for defining and executing regional validation strategy to ensure products meet customer, regulatory, quality, and manufacturing requirements. This role oversees validation activities throughout the product lifecycle, manages validation risks and commitments, and develops the people, processes, and capabilities necessary to support business growth and performance. - Define and deploy the NAO validation strategy, operating model, footprint, standards, processes, tools, databases, competencies, and governance. - Ensure validation plans translate customer, legal, regulatory, product, process, and internal requirements into clear methods, samples, acceptance criteria, timing, cost, and evidence. - Approve the validation approach and level of evidence for RFQs, programs, design or process changes, deviations, and serial-life actions. - Ensure robust DV, PV, COP, reliability, performance, safety, comfort, NVH, durability, environmental, and other applicable validation deliverables for NAO-led projects. - Own regional validation commitments at acquisition and program gates, including validation plans, statements of work, technical assumptions, timing, resource plans, and testing/simulation cost estimates. - Establish and govern validation execution processes including DVP&R management, test readiness, requirement traceability, risk escalation, deviation management, evidence release, and production-part validation approval. - Provide rapid technical leadership for failed tests, red alerts, COP nonconformities, customer concerns, and launch or serial-life validation issues. - Ensure disciplined failure analysis, root-cause identification, correlation of physical testing with simulation, corrective-action verification, and lessons-learned reuse. - Challenge weak conclusions, incomplete evidence, or noncompliant test execution and require repeat testing or additional analysis when needed. - Develop and manage validation sourcing strategies across internal laboratories, global validation centers, and external providers while ensuring capability, capacity, quality, compliance, and cost effectiveness. - Create effective working routines across Auburn Hills, Puebla, and global sites, with clear ownership, priorities, handoffs, and escalation paths. - Act as the senior regional validation interface with customers and represent the organization in technical reviews, program gates, escalations, audits, and recovery discussions. - Partner with design and program teams early to influence product architecture, design robustness, testability, sample strategy, and efficient validation sequencing. - Maintain proactive communication of status, decisions, risks, recovery needs, and commitments through concise executive reporting and fact-based recommendations. - Ensure validation teams are included early in program planning and that all regional validation spend and commitments are visible and controlled. - Own departmental operating plans, budgets, capital planning, external testing spend, resource forecasts, workload allocation, and productivity improvement. - Optimize internal versus external execution, sample reuse, test sequencing, subsystem approaches, simulation-to-test correlation, and automation to reduce lead time and total validation cost without reducing technical rigor. - Deploy meaningful KPIs for safety, quality, delivery, cost, capacity, report right-first-time, test success, issue closure, and customer satisfaction. - Ensure compliance with company quality, environmental, safety, information-protection, ethics, and management systems. - Lead, develop, and retain a high-performing multi-site validation organization through talent management, succession planning, hiring, training, and coaching. Authorities: - Approve regional validation strategies, DVP&R plans, test plans, statements of work, technical reports, and validation deliverables within delegated authority. - Allocate and reprioritize validation workload across programs, sites, global resources, internal laboratories, and external suppliers. - Escalate or stop validation activity when safety, compliance, sample integrity, test-method adherence, data quality, or technical evidence is inadequate. - Recommend design changes, additional analysis, repeat testing, containment, deviation, or conditional release when validation evidence identifies risk. - Approve departmental operating expenditures and recommend capital investments, organization changes, and staffing actions within company governance. Knowledge / Skills: - Strong leadership and project management skills - Familiarity with automotive test methods, standards, and regulatory requirements - Knowledge in design of seat components and mechanisms - Team player with strong communication skills - International mindset and minimum bilingual (English required) Education / Experience: - Minimum education level of a Bachelor's degree (Master's degree preferred) in Technical Engineering or relevant field - Minimum 15 years of experience in the Automotive industry, with 4-5 years of experience in Product testing & validation being a plus.