Who we are
We live and breathe audio. We are driven by the passion to create audio solutions that make a difference. The business with consumer devices such as headphones, soundbars and speech-enhanced hearables is now operated by Sonova Holding AG under the license of Sennheiser.
With the well-known Sennheiser brand, the company stands for premium quality in the field of audio products. In order to remain among the best in its field, Sonova Consumer Hearing is always on the lookout for outstanding talent for the Sennheiser brand. The company is headquartered in Hannover, Germany, with approximately 600 employees worldwide.
Senior/Director, Quality
We are seeking an experienced and strategic leader to head our Qualification and Quality Management function. This role is responsible for defining and driving end-to-end qualification strategies, overseeing the global Quality Management System (QMS) in alignment with ISO standards, and ensuring robust product and process quality across internal operations and external manufacturing partners.
The successful candidate will lead a global team and work cross-functionally with R&D, operations, and suppliers to ensure manufacturing readiness, production excellence, and continuous improvement throughout the product lifecycle. This role also serves as the primary quality interface for contract manufacturers, particularly in Asia, ensuring compliance with regulatory, customer, and industry requirements.
This is a high-impact leadership position that combines strategic oversight with operational execution, playing a critical role in enabling successful product launches, scalable production, and sustained quality performance.
Job responsibilities:
- Define and execute global qualification and production quality strategies aligned with business and operational goals.
- Lead, develop, and inspire a global team, fostering a culture of quality, accountability, and continuous improvement.
- Establish standardized frameworks, methodologies, and governance models across regions and sites.
- Own and maintain the global QMS in compliance with ISO standards.
- Lead certification and surveillance audits, ensuring timely closure of findings.
- Drive corrective and preventive actions, management reviews, and continuous improvement initiatives.
- Ensure robust documentation, process controls, and regulatory compliance across the organization.
- Oversee qualification processes for new product introductions, transfers, and changes.
- Ensure effective process validation, manufacturing readiness, and production release.
- Govern qualification documentation, test protocols, validation reports, and traceability.
- Integrate field feedback and lessons learned into qualification standards.
- Partner with manufacturing and operations teams to ensure stable, capable production processes.
- Embed manufacturability and quality requirements early in design and development.
- Support product ramp-up, transfers, and scale-up activities.
- Own quality performance for externally manufactured products.
- Act as the key quality interface for Asian contract manufacturers.
- Lead supplier qualification, audits, and development initiatives.
- Ensure supplier compliance with ISO 9001 and customer/regulatory requirements.
- Provide escalation support and drive continuous improvement with suppliers.
- Collaborate with R&D, project management, regulatory, and operations teams to integrate quality throughout the product lifecycle.
- Act as a trusted advisor on quality and qualification matters.
- Identify and mitigate risks related to product quality, supplier capability, and regulatory compliance.
- Develop and implement risk mitigation and contingency plans.
- Engage with customers to understand and align on quality and compliance expectations.
- Ensure customer requirements are embedded into QMS and qualification processes.
- Define and track KPIs for qualification, production quality, supplier performance, and compliance.
- Provide regular reporting and strategic insights to senior leadership.
Pre-requisites:
- Technical degree (BA, Master, Ingenieur, PhD).
- 8-10 years relevant experience in product and process qualification of which 5 years with leadership responsibility.
- Broad technical knowledge in the respective field.
- Deep knowledge of quality processes.
- Product development experience.
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
- Structured and solution-oriented thinking.
- Very good problem-solving skills.
- Hands-on mentality.
- Ability to drive topics with the team and get things done.
- Good strategic thinking skills.
- Very high leadership skills or the respective potential.
- Proven ability to empower and motivate people and teams.
- Continuous improvement, agile mindset.
- Good knowledge on tools and methods to organize and structure agile teams and agile/non-agile work tasks.
- Audio/headphone product development experience is and added advantage.
