Director of Asset Management (European Operations)

About the role

We are looking for a senior leader to drive the Group’s European asset management strategy across a heavy‑industrial processing environment. The Director will shape a proactive, performance‑driven approach that maximises asset value, safety, reliability and sustainability while supporting long‑term business objectives.

Key responsibilities

• Develop, implement and maintain the Group’s Strategic Asset Management Plan, aligning objectives with corporate strategy and site budgets.
• Improve asset reliability, availability, maintainability and overall equipment effectiveness through disciplined reliability engineering and maintenance strategies.
• Define enterprise‑wide asset management policies, standards, lifecycle processes, decision rights and performance expectations.
• Lead the transition from reactive to proactive and predictive maintenance models.
• Establish consistent asset criticality, risk assessment and mitigation for safety‑critical, production‑critical and environmentally significant assets.
• Provide functional leadership in a matrix structure, coach site leaders and build capability through competency frameworks.
• Design and deploy an ISO 55000‑aligned asset management system, including value realisation, assurance and continual improvement.
• Maintain regular site presence, support operations hands‑on and monitor KPIs, maturity assessments and audit outcomes.
• Support capital allocation decisions using lifecycle costing, risk‑based prioritisation and business cases.
• Enhance asset data quality, master data governance and digital asset management tools.

Required profile

• Significant senior leadership experience in asset management, maintenance, reliability, engineering or capital‑intensive industrial operations.
• Background in metals processing, heavy manufacturing, chemicals, energy, utilities or a similar asset‑intensive sector.
• Degree in engineering, asset management, operations or related discipline; postgraduate or professional qualifications are a plus.

Required skills

• ISO 55000 principles
• Reliability engineering
• Predictive maintenance methodologies
• Asset management system implementation
• Lifecycle costing and risk‑based prioritisation
• Digital asset data governance