Operations Manager

The EMEA Operations Manager is responsible for leading, coordinating, and continuously improving the operational infrastructure supporting the EMEA business.

Based at the company's EMEA headquarters in Amsterdam and reporting directly to the General Manager, EMEA , the Operations Manager provides leadership and oversight across several critical operational functions:

• Distribution & Logistics
• Customer Service
• Facilities Management
• IT Helpdesk / End-User IT Support
• Health & Safety, co-led in partnership with Human Resources

The role will directly manage the EMEA Distribution Manager and other functional leaders or team members within its scope, ensuring that operational functions work together effectively to support customers, employees, and the company's growth objectives.

The EMEA Operations Manager will establish clear objectives, processes, service levels, controls, and performance metrics across these functions and drive a culture of customer focus, safety, accountability, operational excellence, responsiveness, and continuous improvement .

As a member of the EMEA leadership team, the role will work closely with the General Manager and functional leaders across Sales, Finance, Human Resources, Quality, Regulatory, Supply Chain, Procurement, and global corporate functions.

The position requires an individual capable of combining strategic thinking with hands-on operational leadership , ensuring that day-to-day operations perform effectively while developing the processes, capabilities, infrastructure, and organization required to support future growth.

Key Responsibilities

1. EMEA Operational Leadership

• Provide overall leadership and coordination across Distribution, Customer Service, Facilities, IT Helpdesk, and Health & Safety within EMEA.
• Translate EMEA business priorities into operational objectives, improvement initiatives, and measurable performance targets.
• Establish a consistent operating rhythm, including KPIs, operational reviews, action plans, and management reporting.
• Identify operational risks, bottlenecks, and opportunities and proactively develop solutions.
• Ensure appropriate resources, processes, systems, and infrastructure are available to support business growth.
• Develop and implement operational policies and procedures that improve efficiency, scalability, quality, safety, and customer experience.
• Promote collaboration between operational teams and commercial and corporate functions.
• Provide the General Manager with regular visibility into operational performance, risks, priorities, and improvement initiatives.
• Lead major cross-functional operational projects and initiatives across EMEA.
• Foster a culture of operational ownership in which employees proactively identify risks, problems, and opportunities for improvement.

2. Distribution & Logistics Leadership

Through the EMEA Distribution Manager , provide leadership and oversight of the company's distribution and logistics network across the region.

Responsibilities include:

• Lead, coach, and support the Distribution Manager in achieving operational and business objectives.
• Oversee the Amsterdam warehouse operation and external 3PL network, including key locations such as the UK and Switzerland .
• Ensure effective management of transportation and freight providers throughout EMEA.
• Review performance relating to:
• Inventory levels and inventory turns
• Inventory accuracy
• Quarterly and annual physical inventory counts
• Order fulfillment
• Lead times
• On-time delivery / OTIF
• Warehouse and 3PL productivity
• Transportation performance and cost
• Customer satisfaction
• Ensure appropriate controls are in place for inventory management, including cycle counting and physical inventory.
• Review significant inventory variances and ensure appropriate root-cause analysis and corrective actions are implemented.
• Ensure Distribution, Customer Service, and Supply Chain activities are closely coordinated to improve the overall customer experience.
• Support strategic decisions regarding warehouse footprint, 3PL partners, carriers, inventory positioning, capacity, and future distribution requirements.
• Drive continuous improvement in the overall cost, reliability, scalability, and service performance of the EMEA distribution network.

The Distribution Manager retains responsibility for the day-to-day management of distribution operations, while the Operations Manager provides leadership, strategic direction, performance oversight, and accountability .

3. Customer Service Leadership

Provide leadership and oversight of the EMEA Customer Service organization, ensuring a high-quality and consistent customer experience throughout the region.

Responsibilities include:

• Lead and develop the Customer Service team and/or Customer Service leadership.
• Establish and monitor service standards and customer-service KPIs.
• Ensure timely and accurate order processing and communication with customers.
• Monitor customer inquiries, complaints, escalations, and service issues.
• Establish effective escalation processes for significant customer issues.
• Ensure timely root-cause analysis and corrective actions for recurring service problems.
• Improve coordination between Customer Service, Sales, Distribution, Supply Chain, Finance, and other functions.
• Identify opportunities to simplify, standardize, and automate customer-service processes.
• Develop consistent procedures and service standards across EMEA.
• Use customer feedback and operational data to continuously improve the customer experience.

Key Customer Service Metrics

• Customer satisfaction
• Order accuracy
• Response time
• Issue-resolution time
• Order-processing lead time
• Customer complaint volume
• Complaint resolution time
• Backorder performance
• On-time delivery
• Customer-service productivity

4. Facilities Management

Provide overall responsibility for the effective management of EMEA facilities, with particular focus on the Amsterdam headquarters.

Responsibilities include:

• Ensure company facilities provide a safe, professional, efficient, and productive working environment for employees and visitors.
• Manage relationships with landlords, property managers, maintenance providers, security providers, cleaning services, and other facility vendors.
• Oversee building maintenance, repairs, office services, security, access control, utilities, and other facility-related services.
• Ensure preventive maintenance programs are established and completed as required.
• Manage facilities-related contracts, costs, capital requests, and projects.
• Coordinate office modifications, expansions, relocations, and workplace improvement initiatives when required.
• Work closely with Human Resources and other stakeholders regarding workplace requirements and the employee experience.
• Maintain appropriate emergency response and business-continuity procedures.
• Identify facility-related risks and ensure appropriate corrective actions are implemented.
• Continuously evaluate facility utilization and infrastructure requirements as the EMEA organization evolves.

5. Health & Safety Leadership

Co-lead EMEA Health & Safety with Human Resources , ensuring that appropriate policies, standards, processes, training, and controls are established and effectively implemented across applicable EMEA operations and facilities.

Responsibilities include:

• Partner with Human Resources to develop, maintain, communicate, and implement Health & Safety policies and programs.
• Promote a strong safety-first culture across the EMEA organization and ensure Health & Safety is integrated into operational decision-making.
• Support managers and employees in understanding and fulfilling their Health & Safety responsibilities.
• Ensure appropriate workplace and warehouse safety procedures, assessments, inspections, and controls are established and maintained.
• Coordinate with Human Resources, Facilities, Distribution, and other relevant functions to identify workplace hazards and operational risks.
• Ensure Health & Safety incidents and near misses are appropriately reported, documented, investigated, and followed by corrective and preventive actions.
• Support regular Health & Safety inspections and reviews of offices, warehouse operations, and other relevant work environments.
• Coordinate relevant Health & Safety training, awareness programs, and communications with Human Resources and functional leaders.
• Ensure appropriate emergency procedures, evacuation plans, first-aid arrangements, and employee safety measures are maintained and periodically reviewed.
• Monitor completion of Health & Safety actions and escalate significant risks or overdue corrective actions when necessary.
• Partner with Human Resources and appropriate internal or external specialists to support compliance with applicable local requirements across EMEA.
• Ensure Health & Safety expectations are appropriately incorporated into the management of relevant third-party service providers and contractors.
• Provide regular visibility of significant Health & Safety risks, incidents, trends, and improvement initiatives to the General Manager and EMEA leadership team.

Key Health & Safety Metrics

• Recordable workplace incidents
• Lost-time incidents
• Near-miss reporting
• Completion of Health & Safety training
• Completion of workplace inspections and risk assessments
• Corrective-action closure rate
• Safety-related audit findings
• Emergency preparedness activities

Health & Safety is a shared responsibility. The EMEA Operations Manager will co-lead the overall program with Human Resources, while managers and employees remain responsible for applying appropriate safety standards within their respective areas.

6. IT Helpdesk & End-User Support

Provide management oversight of the EMEA IT Helpdesk and local end-user technology support, working in close partnership with the company's global or corporate IT organization.

Responsibilities include:

• Ensure EMEA employees receive timely and effective IT support.
• Establish clear service expectations and escalation processes for end-user support.
• Monitor helpdesk performance, ticket volumes, response times, resolution times, and recurring issues.
• Ensure effective onboarding and offboarding processes from an IT equipment and access perspective, in coordination with HR and Corporate IT.
• Oversee local IT equipment and asset management.
• Coordinate technology requirements related to offices, meeting rooms, telecommunications, and employee productivity.
• Ensure recurring technology issues are identified and escalated for permanent resolution.
• Partner with global IT on system deployments, infrastructure changes, cybersecurity initiatives, and technology projects affecting EMEA.
• Support business-continuity planning relating to local technology infrastructure and employee connectivity.
• Identify opportunities to improve the employee IT support experience.

Key IT Helpdesk Metrics

• Ticket response time
• Ticket resolution time
• Open-ticket backlog
• First-contact resolution
• Recurring incidents
• Employee/user satisfaction
• IT asset accuracy
• Service availability

The role focuses on operational IT service delivery and business partnership , while enterprise IT architecture, cybersecurity policy, infrastructure strategy, and corporate systems remain under the appropriate global IT organization.

7. Customer Experience & Cross-Functional Coordination

A key responsibility of the EMEA Operations Manager is ensuring that the individual operational functions work together as one integrated customer-support organization .

The role will:

• Develop an end-to-end view of the customer journey from order entry through fulfillment and delivery .
• Identify gaps or handoff issues between Customer Service, Distribution, Logistics, IT, Sales, and Supply Chain.
• Establish clear accountability for resolving customer-impacting operational issues.
• Lead cross-functional root-cause analysis for significant or recurring service failures.
• Create improvement plans focused on reducing lead times, errors, complaints, and unnecessary process complexity.
• Ensure operational decisions consider their impact on customers and employees.
• Promote greater consistency and standardization of operating processes across EMEA.

8. Performance Management & Continuous Improvement

Establish and maintain an EMEA Operations Dashboard providing visibility to the General Manager and leadership team.

Distribution & Inventory

• Inventory value
• Inventory turns
• Inventory accuracy
• Physical inventory count accuracy
• Cycle count accuracy
• Excess and obsolete inventory
• Order fulfillment lead time
• OTIF / on-time delivery
• Warehouse productivity
• 3PL performance
• Transportation performance and cost

Customer Service

• Customer satisfaction
• Response and resolution times
• Order accuracy
• Order-processing lead time
• Customer complaints
• Backorders
• Escalations

Facilities

• Facility operating costs
• Maintenance performance
• Facility-related incidents
• Vendor performance
• Project performance

IT Helpdesk

• Ticket volume
• Response time
• Resolution time
• Backlog
• First-contact resolution
• User satisfaction
• Recurring incidents

Health & Safety

• Workplace incidents and near misses
• Health & Safety training completion
• Inspection and risk-assessment completion
• Corrective-action closure
• Health & Safety audit findings

The Operations Manager will use these metrics to identify trends, establish priorities, hold teams and partners accountable, and implement measurable improvement plans.

9. Budget & Financial Management

• Develop and manage operational budgets for the functions within the role's responsibility.
• Monitor actual spending against budget and forecast.
• Provide accurate operating expense forecasts to Finance and the General Manager.
• Identify opportunities for cost reduction and productivity improvement without negatively impacting customer service, employee experience, safety, quality, or compliance.
• Review significant contracts and service agreements within Operations.
• Partner with Procurement to negotiate and optimize major vendor agreements.
• Develop business cases for significant operational investments and capital expenditures.
• Ensure operational investments deliver measurable business value.
• Balance service, cost, quality, safety, risk, and scalability when making operational decisions.

10. Vendor & Partner Management

• Establish a structured approach to managing key operational vendors.
• Ensure appropriate SLAs and KPIs are established for critical suppliers.
• Conduct periodic performance reviews with strategic vendors.
• Hold suppliers accountable for service, quality, safety, cost, and contractual commitments.
• Coordinate corrective-action plans for underperforming suppliers.
• Periodically evaluate whether existing vendors and service models continue to meet business requirements.
• Work with Procurement and functional stakeholders on vendor selection, contract renewals, and competitive tenders where appropriate.

Key vendor categories may include:

• 3PL providers
• Transportation and freight companies
• Facility-management providers
• Building and maintenance contractors
• IT support/service providers
• Telecommunications providers
• Health & Safety service providers
• Other EMEA operational partners

11. Quality, Compliance, Risk & Business Continuity

Given the Life Sciences environment , the Operations Manager will work closely with Quality, Regulatory, Human Resources, and other relevant functions to ensure operational activities support applicable requirements.

Responsibilities include:

• Ensure appropriate operational procedures and controls are established and maintained.
• Support internal and external audits where operational functions are involved.
• Ensure corrective actions resulting from audits or operational reviews are completed.
• Identify significant operational, workplace, facility, and business-continuity risks and establish appropriate mitigation plans.
• Maintain appropriate business-continuity plans covering facilities, distribution, logistics, customer service, local IT support, and employee safety.
• Periodically review business-continuity and emergency-response arrangements.
• Escalate material operational and Health & Safety risks to the General Manager and relevant corporate functions.

12. People Leadership & Organizational Development

• Lead, coach, and develop managers and employees across the Operations organization.
• Establish clear objectives, responsibilities, and performance expectations.
• Build a culture of safety, accountability, collaboration, customer focus, and continuous improvement .
• Develop succession and capability plans for critical operational roles.
• Identify training and development needs across the organization.
• Encourage cross-functional collaboration and reduce organizational silos.
• Create an environment where employees feel empowered to identify operational and safety concerns and recommend improvements.
• Ensure the Operations organization evolves appropriately as the EMEA business grows.

Key Performance Indicators

Performance should be measured across a balanced combination of customer, operational, financial, people, safety, and continuous-improvement metrics .

Customer

• Customer satisfaction
• Customer complaint levels
• Issue-resolution lead time
• On-time delivery / OTIF
• Order accuracy

Operational

• Inventory turns
• Inventory accuracy
• Physical inventory accuracy
• Order fulfillment lead time
• 3PL and transportation performance
• Customer Service performance
• IT Helpdesk service levels
• Facility availability and performance

Health & Safety

• Workplace incident performance
• Near-miss reporting and follow-up
• Health & Safety training completion
• Risk-assessment and inspection completion
• Timely closure of corrective actions

Financial

• Operational expenses versus budget
• Distribution and transportation costs
• Facility costs
• Vendor cost performance
• Productivity improvements
• Savings and efficiency initiatives

People

• Employee engagement
• Team development
• Employee retention
• Succession planning
• Achievement of team objectives

Continuous Improvement

• Completion of key operational improvement initiatives
• Measurable productivity improvements
• Reduction in recurring customer and operational issues
• Process standardization and automation

Qualifications & Experience

Required

• Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Operations, Supply Chain, Engineering , or a related discipline, or equivalent relevant professional experience.
• Approximately 10+ years of progressive experience in operations, supply chain, customer service, logistics, or related operational leadership roles.
• Demonstrated experience leading multiple operational functions and teams.
• Strong people-management and organizational-development experience.
• Experience managing managers and/or functional leaders.
• Strong understanding of distribution, logistics, inventory, and customer-service operations.
• Experience managing external service providers and strategic vendors.
• Demonstrated ability to establish and use KPIs to improve operational performance.
• Strong financial and budget-management capabilities.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and decision-making capabilities.
• Experience leading cross-functional projects and change initiatives.
• Strong commitment to promoting a safe and professional working environment.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder-management skills.
• Fluent English.
• Ability to operate effectively within an international and multicultural organization.

Preferred

• Experience within the Life Sciences, biotechnology, laboratory, pharmaceutical, medical device, diagnostics, or scientific-products industry .
• Experience working within an EMEA regional organization.
• Knowledge of European distribution and logistics operations.
• Experience with workplace Health & Safety programs in partnership with Human Resources or dedicated H&S professionals.
• Experience managing facilities and/or end-user IT service functions.
• Experience with ERP, CRM, WMS, and business reporting systems.
• Experience with continuous-improvement methodologies.
• Demonstrated experience scaling operations to support business growth.

Leadership Competencies

Strategic & Operational Leadership

Translates business strategy into practical operational priorities while maintaining strong day-to-day execution.

Customer Focus

Places the customer at the center of operational decisions and recognizes that Customer Service, Distribution, Logistics, and supporting functions collectively determine the customer experience.

Safety Leadership

Actively promotes a culture in which employee health, safety, and well-being are integral to how the organization operates and makes decisions.

People Leadership

Builds strong teams, develops leaders, establishes accountability, and creates an environment in which employees can succeed.

Business Acumen

Understands the financial and commercial implications of operational decisions and balances service, cost, working capital, safety, risk, and growth.

Continuous Improvement

Challenges existing processes and encourages simplification, standardization, automation, and measurable performance improvement.

Data-Driven Decision Making

Uses operational, customer, safety, and financial metrics to identify problems, establish priorities, and measure results.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

Builds strong partnerships across Sales, Finance, Human Resources, Supply Chain, Quality, Regulatory, Procurement, and Corporate IT.

Change Leadership

Successfully leads teams through organizational growth, process changes, new systems, and evolving customer and business requirements.

Cytek is an equal-opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, age, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, genetic information, disability status, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.