VPO Quality Specialist - Africa Zone

About the role

SAB/ABInBev is looking for a VPO Quality Specialist to lead the VPO Quality Pillar across the Africa Zone. The role provides strategic and technical leadership, driving capability, compliance, pillar maturity and continuous improvement to deliver sustainable business and quality results.

Key responsibilities

• Lead the deployment and continuous improvement of the VPO Quality Pillar across Africa Zone operations.
• Define and govern the Zone Quality Pillar strategy, priorities and performance targets.
• Drive improvements in business KPIs and VPO means through pillar standards, systems and routines.
• Guide and support Plant leadership teams in executing Quality Pillar requirements and improvement plans.
• Build capability by coaching, training and developing Pillar Owners, Quality teams and Plant leadership.
• Analyse performance to identify risks, gaps and improvement opportunities.
• Lead VPO Check-to-Coach assessments, ensuring action planning, follow-up and gap closure.
• Apply VPO methodologies, PDCA and SDCA to drive structured problem solving and continuous improvement.
• Identify, validate and standardize best practices, replicating them across the zone and escalating to Global where appropriate.
• Support Quality Pillar implementation in existing operations, greenfield and brownfield projects, acquisitions and new operations.
• Monitor, report and govern Quality Pillar performance in line with the Global VPO Business Cycle.
• Maintain all Quality Pillar standards, tools, documentation and governance processes.

Required profile

• Tertiary qualification in Quality, Food Science, Engineering, Brewing, Packaging, Manufacturing or a related discipline.
• Minimum 5 years of Quality Management experience in a manufacturing or FMCG environment.
• Experience with VPO or similar manufacturing excellence systems.
• Proven experience implementing and sustaining quality, food safety and management systems.
• Experience in brewery, production or operational environments.
• Willingness and ability to travel extensively across Africa, and experience supporting multiple sites or regional operations.
• Audit and assessment experience.

Required skills

• Strong coaching, facilitation and capability-building skills.
• Demonstrated problem-solving and continuous improvement experience.
• Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills across multiple organizational levels.