THE ROLE

The Global Vice President, EHS, is responsible for leading the company’s global Environment, Health, and Safety strategy, emphasizing Safety First as a core value. The position ensures global accountability for EHS performance across the company’s six manufacturing plants (United States, China, Taiwan, Germany) and international offices. The primary focus of the role is to design, implement, and sustain a globally standardized, risk-based Safety Program that emphasizes continuous improvement, regulatory compliance, process safety excellence, and a safety-first culture at all levels of the organization.

This role ensures that EHS is embedded into daily operations, risk management, and leadership behavior. The position provides strategic leadership and oversight, ensuring alignment with business objectives, operational excellence, and stakeholder expectations.

KEY INTERFACES

• Operations Directors/Plant Managers and Site Leadership Teams
• Regional and Functional Leaders (Operations, Quality, Engineering, Supply Chain)
• Global and Regional HR
• Global Regulatory Agencies, Industry Groups, Customers

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Global EHS Strategy and Leadership

• Develop and implement a global EHS strategy aligned to Safety First as the company’s core value, primarily focusing on preventing incidents, injuries, and environmental harm.
• Establish and lead the standardization of EHS processes, systems, metrics, and reporting globally, ensuring consistent application across all sites while allowing for local regulatory compliance.
• Lead the creation and deployment of a global Safety Program, incorporating behavior-based safety, process safety management (PSM), hazard identification, and control systems.
• In collaboration with executive and site leadership teams, ensure EHS is integrated into business planning, operations, engineering, product stewardship, and capital projects.
• Risk Management and Compliance
• Lead global risk identification, assessment, and mitigation programs, with a specific emphasis on chemical safety, process safety, and hazardous materials management.
• Ensure all operations are in full compliance with applicable local, regional, national, and international EHS regulations, including China, the United States, Taiwan, and Germany.
• Oversee the development, execution, and auditing of EHS management systems, driving corrective actions and
• accountability.

Culture, Leadership, and Capability Development

• Champion and model Safety First leadership behaviors, ensuring EHS expectations are clear, consistently applied, and reinforced through leader engagement and communication.
• Build, mentor, and lead the global EHS organization, ensuring talent development, succession planning, and performance management are in place.
• Establish and deploy global programs for incident investigation, root cause analysis, corrective action management, and near-miss reporting, ensuring timely resolution and sharing of lessons learned.
• Continuous Improvement and Integration
• Lead global efforts to embed continuous improvement into the EHS management system, driving innovation, best practice sharing, and performance improvement year over year.
• Utilize data analytics, benchmarking, and leading indicators to identify improvement opportunities and proactively address emerging risks.
• Integrate EHS performance into operational KPIs and management reviews, ensuring clear visibility and accountability at all organizational levels.
• Stakeholder Management
• Serve as the company’s primary EHS liaison with regulatory bodies, customers, industry groups, and internal stakeholders.
• Lead corporate governance of EHS, ensuring alignment with the company’s risk management, compliance, sustainability, and ESG strategies.

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, EHS, Chemical Safety, or a related field; advanced degree preferred.
• Minimum 15 years of progressive EHS leadership experience, including global responsibility in chemical-intensive manufacturing industries.
• Deep expertise in chemical process safety, hazardous materials management, and global EHS regulations.
• Demonstrated experience building and sustaining standardized global EHS programs and driving safety culture transformation.
• Proven ability to lead and influence cross-functional, cross-cultural teams in complex global environments.
• Fluent in English; Mandarin proficiency strongly preferred.
• Based in Suzhou, China, with extensive global travel (30-40%).