Chief Operations Officer (COO) to Traitomic A/S

Chief Operations Officer (COO) to Traitomic A/S – Copenhagen

Do you want to become part of a successful scale-up, with financial resources to invest in growth and a strong customer platform and pipeline? Do you want to spearhead and develop efficient and scalable production processes? Can you leverage your knowledge from production processes in agriculture, biotech, pharma or another microbiology area and apply it in a plant and microbes setting? And do you want to head a skilled team of specialists and contract manufacturers across the world? Then we recommend you to continue.

As COO, you will report to the CEO, become part of the leadership team, and head a team of ten skilled specialists as well as manage relations with a number of contract manufacturers, including plant and seed production in various sites / fields in the world.

Please note that the role requires you to work out of Traitomic’s office in Copenhagen several days weekly, and furthermore, you can expect some international travelling.

About Traitomic and their technology

With a unique value proposition and by using a proprietary crop and strain improvement process, developed at the renowned Carlsberg Research Laboratory, Traitomic has been successful in attracting customers that are world leading companies within the plant, microbial and food producer space. Traitomic develops commercial gene traits in plants and microbes to partners and customers. Traitomic is an independent legal entity, owned by the Carlsberg Group, and employs 25 people in Copenhagen as well as engaging with several external contract manufacturers and other skilled specialists.

Traitomic’s trait identification and development processes encompasses both plants and microbes, and all steps from growth, selection, and harvest, including genetical analysis through for example DNA sequencing and PCR. With a growing team and a growing portfolio of projects and customers, there is an increasing requirement for structured and clearly communicated operations processes. This is why, we are looking for you, a COO profile, with a distinct leadership profile and production knowledge.

Leadership, direction, and ambitions for next level operation processes

As COO, you will spearhead timely completion of commercial projects via an efficient and high-quality operations organisation. As a member of the leadership team, you will be actively engaged in the growth strategy including facility expansions (both on site and in new geographies), as well as implementation of new projects and new technologies. The operational activities cover both plants and microbes, and whether in laboratories or in the fields, you will help to achieve financial plans, employee engagement and strategic goals, as well as leverage resources and motivate people to further nurture a high performance culture.

Traitomic is continuously growing and expanding, which means that you will need to be flexible and proactive about tasks and responsibilities, where some of these include:

• Leading Traitomic’s E2E trait development team and processes in plants and microbes.
• Driving operating capabilities towards quality and customer satisfaction.
• Developing and implementing programmes of continuous improvement, and operational systems, processes and policies supporting initiatives geared toward operational excellence and Health & Safety.
• Planning activities, projects and resources, resulting in actionable daily, weekly, monthly and annual operational plans.
• Identifying opportunities and design policies, and stay abreast of the latest manufacturing technologies, and implement as appropriate.
• Compiling, monitoring and reporting the operational activities, performance and budgets.

Operations executive with an entrepreneurial mindset

As a leader and colleague, you are motivating, engaging and development oriented. You navigate with ease between strategic and operational tasks, and balance your interest in understanding technologies with staying at a holistic and strategic level. Towards your stakeholders, you are communicative, proactive, and understand the need for balancing quality, deadlines, deliverables, and priorities. Most likely, you are somewhat of a ‘Jack of all trades’, who are structured as well as easily navigating in an agile innovative environment.

Your personal skills are supported with professional experience in following:

• Academic credentials in biotechnology, microbiology, agriculture, plant physiology or equivalent
• Professional experience from complex production processes in the agricultural, microbial biotech space or another production space with plants, cells, or similar.
• Strong insights into genetics and genetic analyses (e.g. gene regulation and pathways, sequencing, PCR etc).
• Leadership experience from having headed specialist teams.
• Experience from building improvements and efficiencies in production and operations processes in an international setting.
• A broad supply chain knowledge, experience with budget management, and a distinct business understanding.

What you can expect from working at Traitomic

As COO, you will become part of a highly dedicated and motivated scale-up team, that unlocks the natural genetic diversity of plants and microbes with a cutting-edge trait development technology. Traitomic believes that nature’s rich diversity is the key in enabling them to help solve the world’s increasing food challenges, and they are driven to help the food industry and its partners by creating and producing increasingly beneficial foodstuffs. With a proactive approach and entrepreneurial mindset, you will have the possibility to help Traitomic shape, strengthen and grow the company further, to become one of the most influential and critically respected trait development companies worldwide.

Learn more about Traitomic and what they do here: [xxxxx]

Contact information

For more information, please contact Managing Partner Camilla Svendsen from [xxxxx] via mail [xxxxx] or via phone +[xxxxx]. To apply, please click on “ansøg” on the top left side of the page. We will look at the applications on an ongoing basis.