Head of Operations

About us

With over 200 brands in nearly 180 countries, Diageo is the world’s leading premium drinks company – home to Johnnie Walker, Guinness, Baileys and Bundaberg Rum. In Australia, we’re 400+ people strong with our head office in Sydney, a major manufacturing site in Sydney’s west, our iconic Bundaberg Distillery, and a passionate sales team nationwide.

We’re powered by inclusion, diversity, and a flexible working culture that’s role-modelled at every level.

As Head of Operations, you’ll lead one of our Tier 3 manufacturing sites to deliver world-class performance across safety, quality, service, and cost. You’ll be a visible, inspiring leader, spending time on the shop floor while driving strategy, continuous improvement, and breakthrough results.

You will:

• Deliver against the balanced scorecard – improving productivity, OEE, COGS, service (OTIF), and governance KPIs.

• Lead the MMS journey to build performance, standards, capability, and asset care.

• Own site strategy, long-range planning, and the annual operating plan.

• Champion safety, quality, environmental and compliance standards (ISO/HACCP).

• Coach and develop leaders and teams, fostering a culture of accountability and innovation.

• Degree qualification in engineering, business, supply chain or science, or equivalent experience (NEBOSH qualified).

• At least 10 years’ experience with a strong track record in FMCG manufacturing/production.

• Proven expertise in packaging, processing and plant technologies.

• Fluent English is essential.

• A proven champion of manufacturing excellence tools, systems and leadership practices.

• Demonstrated ability to build a high-performance climate across large, multi-disciplinary teams.

• Experience partnering with employee groups and representatives in a leadership capacity.

• A strong track record as a coach, with excellent engagement and communication skills.

• Sound financial acumen and commercial awareness.

What are the benefits?

We are an organisation that creates products that are part of celebrations, and our culture reflects this.  At Diageo, you will have the ability to work flexibly to ensure you can unlock your own potential through creating bold plans and executing your vision.

You will also be rewarded through competitive salary and monetary benefits including bonus, flexible leave entitlements and product allowance as well as being supported via non-monetary benefits including an industry leading parental leave policy, volunteering days and workplace giving, and subscriptions to mental health and celebration platforms.
 

Our commitment to inclusion and diversity:

We know that for our business to thrive and for Diageo to realize its ambition, we depend on having diverse talent with a range of backgrounds, skills and capabilities in each of the 180 countries in which we operate and to reflect our broad consumer base. We view diversity as one of the key enablers that helps our business to grow and our values, purpose and standards set the conditions for us to respect the unique contribution each person brings.

At Diageo, we pride ourselves on our fast paced, bold and agile culture. In order to ensure we’re supporting the performance ambitions of our team, internal applications for this role will close Friday 10th October 2025.