Director of Quality

The client is seeking a Director of Quality to provide leadership and expertise to the Quality team at a winery. The role is responsible for directing quality control and quality assurance activities from raw materials through finished products in alignment with corporate standards. The Director of Quality will partner with Procurement, Production Management, Distribution, Customer Service, and the broader Quality organization to achieve business objectives while proactively identifying and mitigating risks and weaknesses that could lead to quality compromises. Key responsibilities include developing and executing departmental plans and budgets to support real-time operations and long-term goals for productivity, quality, and efficiency. The role will build strategic working relationships to ensure accurate information flow, consistent procedure execution, and strong performance of Quality operations. Additional duties include interacting with vendors to support incoming material quality, leading investigations to resolve quality issues, and ensuring adherence to required quality standards to protect product integrity. The Director of Quality will design and implement systems to track quality issues, execute corrective and preventive actions, and drive continuous improvement through audits, risk-focused analyses such as FMEA, and related projects. The Director of Quality will lead and develop the Quality team, ensure accountability, and support the Quality Management System by developing and implementing relevant procedures. The role will also support quality perspectives for new product development initiatives and ensure strong laboratory practices, including chain of custody, lot control, method validation and verification, QC charting, microbiology evaluations, documentation, record keeping, and error analysis. The ideal candidate will have a Bachelor’s degree in a scientific discipline (with an advanced degree preferred), at least 10 years of experience in Quality, Compliance, or a related field, and required project management and prior quality laboratory experience. The client also expects strong written and verbal communication skills, the ability to influence and lead teams, strong business acumen and process analysis skills, high productivity and delivery under pressure, and experience with food ingredient production; experience managing teams across multiple locations is preferred.