Engineering & Maintenance Senior Manager - Utilities

Engineering & Maintenance Senior Manager - Utilities

Hovione

Loures, Portugal

Will provide strategic leadership for the site utilities function, ensuring the safe, reliable, and compliant delivery of critical utility services that support pharmaceutical manufacturing operations. This role combines organizational leadership, operational excellence, and long-term infrastructure planning, with a strong focus on developing high-performing teams, driving continuous improvement, supporting business growth, and maintaining world-class standards of reliability, compliance, and sustainability.

Respsonsibilities will include:

• Providing strategic leadership for the site utilities function, developing and executing long-term utilities, asset management, and infrastructure strategies that support pharmaceutical manufacturing, business objectives, operational excellence, and future site growth.
• Building, leading, and developing a high-performing Utilities Engineering organization by fostering a culture of accountability, collaboration, inclusion, continuous learning, and employee development through effective coaching, mentoring, succession planning, and talent management.
• Leading workforce planning and organizational capability development, ensuring the appropriate structures, resources, and skills are in place to support evolving business needs, operational priorities, and future manufacturing expansion.
• Partnering with Site Leadership, Manufacturing, Quality, Technical Services, and EHS teams to influence strategic decision-making, drive cross-functional alignment, and deliver key business objectives across the site.
• Championing a culture of Operational Excellence and Continuous Improvement, empowering teams to identify opportunities, solve complex challenges, and implement sustainable improvements through Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, systems thinking, and data-driven decision making.
• Leading utility-related CAPEX programs, Brownfield and Greenfield projects, site infrastructure upgrades, utility expansion initiatives, and strategic investments, ensuring effective stakeholder engagement and successful project delivery.
• Driving sustainability, energy management, and decarbonization strategies, including ISO 50001 initiatives, utilities consumption reduction, and environmental performance improvements that support long-term business and sustainability goals.
• Ensuring the safe, reliable, and compliant operation of all Critical Utilities, including HVAC, Boilers, Steam Systems, Chilled Water, Cooling Towers, Compressed Air, Nitrogen Systems, Vacuum Systems, Wastewater Treatment, BMS, SCADA, and Energy Management Systems.
• Providing leadership and oversight for Clean Utilities systems including Purified Water (PW), Water for Injection (WFI), Clean Steam, CIP, and SIP, ensuring compliance with GMP, cGMP, FDA, EMA, Annex 1, Data Integrity, and Sterile Manufacturing requirements.
• Establishing and maintain robust reliability and asset management programs utilizing Reliability Engineering, Asset Lifecycle Management, Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM), Preventive and Predictive Maintenance, FMEA, Root Cause Analysis, CMMS, SAP PM, and effective management of qualification, commissioning, validation, change control, deviation investigations, CAPAs, FAT, SAT, and startup activities.

We are looking to recruit a Candidate:

• Degree qualified in Engineering or a related discipline.
• Minimum 5 years' engineering leadership experience within a regulated manufacturing environments, ideally pharmaceutical.
• Proven track record of building and leading high-performing teams and driving a culture of accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
• Strong strategic leadership and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence across functions and levels.
• Experience managing critical utility systems, including HVAC, PW, WFI, Clean Steam, Compressed Air, and associated site infrastructure.
• Sound knowledge of GMP/cGMP requirements, including FDA, EMA, Annex 1, validation, change control, CAPA, and inspection readiness.
• Experience in asset management, reliability engineering, operational excellence, and capital project delivery.
• Excellent communication, leadership, and problem-solving skills.