Inside the Role of a Manufacturing Plant Director

Monday, April 21, 2025

You have been with Mondelēz for the past twelve years. Why did you choose us and why are you still here?

Apart from Mondelēz being the largest snacking company in the world (snacking made right!) I chose Mondelēz because of its values of loving its consumers and brands, doing what’s right and growing every day, and I stayed because those values have proven to be true and aligned with my own personal moral compass. With Mondelēz I’ve moved across multiple continents, learned and led multiple functions that made me a better professional, I thrive to learn every day from a wide array of mentors and experts, and I get to go home happy to my family with a sense of pride I belong to this organization where its products are all over the world creating delicious moments of joy for our consumers!

You moved from Canada to take on your role as Plant Director in Naperville, IL. What drove you to take the role?

Mondelēz offers constant challenging yet rewarding opportunities, I took the role to capitalize on Mondelēz being a multinational organization that offers outstanding diverse career opportunities, learning about different ways of work, cultures is a huge experience and career booster. In addition to my passion about operations of course!

Can you describe a typical day at work for you?

My day is all about being there for my team. I start my day with a Gemba walk to ensure that the core team have what they need to deliver outstanding products, then we run our daily actions meeting and product tasting (best part of the day 😊). Then, I go about my business meetings, have lunch & connect with my direct reports. Finally, I end it with another Gemba with the second shift team. When you’re a plant director you’re in the business of making other people successful.

How do you implement and monitor efficiency improvements in the plant?

In Mondelēz we operate according to world class standards of Integrated lean six sigma, where we put the people capability at the heart of everything we do and deploy lean systems that deliver 100% people engagement and zero loss mindset, this is how we do it.

How do you keep your team motivated when working towards meeting key objectives?

Imprinting a passion to win culture and explaining to the team not only what is in it for the business to deliver their objectives but what is in it for them personally and their careers as professionals, Winning teams are self-sufficient. But every day we thrive to envision, energize, engage, enable, and finally execute the objectives we committed on, our motto in Naperville is Perform to grow, and Mondelēz does a phenomenal job growing performers careers.

What is the most rewarding part of your job?

Knowing that we are creating delicious moments of joy for our consumers at the highest quality standards, that my family can consume what we make as it is made with passion and care and world class standards. Being part of a healthy snacking company that delivers the right snack at the right moment made the right way is very prideful and self-rewarding!

What advice would you give to anyone considering a career in Manufacturing at Mondelēz?

If you’re resilient and passionate about learning, winning and building infinite combinations of career growth as well as learning the latest and greatest world class manufacturing systems, and most importantly, you enjoy working with people, then Mondelēz is definitely one of the unique few companies in the world that combines those. Make sure you’re passionate about our values as a company and that you can connect to it at a personal and professional level. If you can do that, then The Mondelēz world is definitely for you!