Company

INEOS Olefins & Polymers USA

Interested in joining a winning team? A team whose employees are empowered to make a difference?

Employer

INEOS Pigments Group

Job Title

Human Resources Director

Job Location

Columbus or Ashtabula, Ohio

Business Context

INEOS Pigments Group is an integrated producer of titanium dioxide for the coatings, plastics, and paper markets and a leading producer of titanium chemicals. The business also produces significant quantities of potassium hydroxide, chlorine, and pig iron as byproducts. The Pigments Group employs 750 people across five manufacturing locations in Ashtabula, Ohio and a facility in Tyssedal, Norway with business headquarters and a technical center in Columbus, Ohio as well as a small commercial office in London.

INEOS Pigments Group operates in a highly unionized, capital-intensive manufacturing environment facing sustained external volatility, margin pressure and structural cost challenges. The business requires a step-change in operational performance, workforce productivity and leadership accountability.

This appointment is a critical component of restoring competitiveness, improving plant-level consistency, strengthening labor flexibility and embedding a performance-driven culture.

Role Purpose

The Human Resources Director reports directly to the CEO as a member of the Pigments Group Board and is a core member of the Executive Leadership Team.

This is not a traditional HR leadership role. It is a turnaround leadership mandate. The successful candidate will materially improve business performance through disciplined workforce strategy, industrial relations leadership and a reset of management capability across the business.

The HRD will be accountable for delivering measurable improvement in productivity, cost competitiveness, leadership effectiveness and workforce stability within 24 months.

Core Accountabilities

Restore Business Competitiveness Through Workforce Strategy
Translate EBITDA, margin restoration and cost reduction targets into concrete workforce actions.
Drive measurable improvements in labor productivity and workforce utilization.
Rebase manpower cost structures where required.
Support restructuring, site optimization or resizing initiatives decisively and responsibly.
Improve consistency of performance across manufacturing sites.
Industrial Relations & Multi-Union Leadership
Lead industrial relations strategy across unionized US manufacturing sites (with exposure to Europe and Norway specifically desirable).
Personally lead or play a central role in major collective bargaining negotiations.
Secure agreements that improve competitiveness, flexibility and operational resilience.
Develop strike preparedness and contingency continuity planning.
Strengthen supervisor capability in managing unionized environments with firmness and respect.
First-Line Leadership Reset & Accountability
Upgrade capability of plant supervisors and front-line leaders as a priority intervention.
Embed consequence-based performance management and eliminate tolerance of underperformance.
Build leadership pipelines for critical operational roles.
Reinforce safety, discipline and ownership at site level.
Talent, Succession & Performance Differentiation
Implement rigorous succession planning for critical and executive roles.
Actively differentiate high and low performance through reward and progression.
Retain high-impact talent essential to technical and operational continuity.
Build and improve apprentice and graduate development programs.
HR Function & Technology Modernization
Transform HR into a lean, commercially aligned and execution-focused function.
Remove bureaucracy and simplify policies and processes.
Fully leverage HRIS platforms (SuccessFactors, UKG Timekeeping) to automate and improve data transparency, workforce analytics and cost discipline.
Increase visibility of performance, absence, overtime and workforce cost drivers.
Manage the business remuneration processes
Oversee the Performance Management/Salary Administration Program for Executive, Staff and Hourly employees.
Annually review compensation pay structures against market to ensure salaries and hourly pay practices are competitive in the industry.
Develop and implement a consistent total compensation and benefits approach across the business.
Culture, Governance & Safety
Reinforce a safety-first, performance-driven culture.
Ensure disciplined governance in reward, performance and manpower control.
Drive cultural alignment around accountability, delivery and competitiveness.
Success Measures (First 24 Months)
Demonstrable improvement in labor productivity metrics.
Successful conclusion of major labor negotiations aligned to competitiveness goals.
Improved supervisor capability and measurable reduction in employee relations escalations.
Clear performance differentiation is embedded across leadership levels.
HR function operating with simplified processes and improved data transparency.
HR Team
Lead and unify one integrated HR function accountable for the full employee lifecycle.
Drive disciplined planning and execution across HRBPs and specialist areas (HRIS, Training, Industrial Relations).
Enforce clear operating model, role clarity and performance standards across all sites.
Upgrade HR capability and pace to operate as a commercially rigorous, performance-driven business partner.
Embed data transparency, cost discipline and execution accountability within the function.

About The Person

We seek a commercially grounded HR executive with a minimum of 15 years’ experience in complex, unionized, manufacturing-intensive industries.

Education

The person we seek holds a university degree ideally at master’s level in business or human resources or an equivalent subject. Further post-graduate qualifications will be an asset.

Languages

Complete fluency in English is required. Other languages will be of significant value.

Essential

Proven track record operating in multi-union US manufacturing environments.
Demonstrated leadership of major collective bargaining negotiations.
Evidence of delivering measurable business turnaround or cost improvement.
Experience upgrading first-line leadership capability.
Strong financial literacy and comfort operating in EBITDA-driven environments.
Experience embedding HR technology and simplifying HR operating models.

Desirable

European (ideally Norway) industrial relations experience.
Specialty chemicals or adjacent sector background.

Leadership Profile

Commercially decisive and performance-oriented.
Comfortable operating in industrial conflict and ambiguity.
Visible, hands-on and operationally credible.
Resilient, direct and accountable.
Trusted advisor to CEO and Board.
Business leader with HR depth

LOCATION:

Columbus or Ashtabula, Ohio.

Our culture is one of honesty and integrity with an emphasis on safety, health and environmental performance. On our team, people are acknowledged for embracing new practices that help create real value for customers.

INEOS Olefins & Polymers USA, LLC

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