About the Role:

The Senior Director of Food Safety and Quality Assurance is accountable for setting the enterprise-wide vision, strategy, and execution of food safety and quality for a high-growth, consumer-focused brand. This role plays a critical leadership position in defining and scaling Kinder’s quality systems, ensuring that every product delivered to market is safe, compliant, and consistently exceptional in taste and performance.

Partnering closely with executive leadership and cross-functional teams, this leader will build the organizational capabilities, processes, and partnerships required to support rapid growth while maintaining best-in-class food safety, quality assurance, and regulatory compliance standards.

This role is central to protecting Kinder’s brand, consumers, and long-term growth. The Senior Director of Food Safety & Quality Assurance will not only ensure compliance but will shape how quality is embedded into every decision, product, and partnership as Kinder’s continues to scale.

Key Responsibilities Include:

Quality Assurance Strategy & Leadership

• Build, lead, and inspire a high-performing Corporate Quality Assurance organization with the structure, talent, and systems to support Kinder’s growth trajectory.
• Establish a culture of continuous improvement, accountability, proactive risk management, and strong collaboration across internal teams and external manufacturing partners.
• Set the long-term quality strategy aligned with business growth, innovation pipelines, and brand standards.

Food Safety & Quality Systems

• Design, evaluate, and continuously optimize scalable food safety and quality programs aligned with industry best practices and regulatory requirements.
• Implement data-driven frameworks to monitor performance, identify risk, and drive corrective and preventive actions.
• Partner closely with Manufacturing Quality leadership and cross-functional stakeholders to ensure consistent understanding, adoption, and execution of quality standards across contract manufacturing partners.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives that elevate product quality and enhance consumer satisfaction.

Testing & Verification Programs

• Develop and optimize balanced, risk-based testing programs to ensure compliance with internal standards and external regulations.
• Maintain comprehensive testing databases, including trend analysis, deviations, and corrective actions.
• Use insights from testing data to proactively mitigate risk and improve product quality.

Consumer Quality & Feedback Management

• Establish and maintain systems to capture, track, and analyze consumer feedback and quality-related inquiries.
• Identify trends and systemic issues; lead corrective actions with vendors or internal partners, including reformulation strategies when necessary.
• Partner with Customer Service to support responses to quality-related consumer inquiries and issue resolution.

Crisis Management & Recall Readiness

• Own and lead Kinder’s food safety and quality crisis response strategy, ensuring swift, decisive action to protect consumers and the brand.
• Develop scenario-based training, tabletop exercises, and proactive risk assessments to strengthen organizational preparedness.
• Refine and maintain recall procedures and response protocols.

Supplier, Audit & Compliance Management

• Refine audit programs, documentation standards, and supplier communication frameworks.
• Partner with Operations and Product Development on qualification and approval of new contract manufacturing partners.
• Lead investigations into quality issues, ensuring robust root cause analysis and corrective/preventive actions.
• Conduct supplier and vendor quality business reviews to identify trends and improvement opportunities.

Regulatory & Documentation Excellence

• Develop and maintain best-in-class regulatory systems and methodologies to ensure compliance across formulations, packaging, and labeling.
• Ensure accuracy and compliance of all labels, specifications, and regulatory documentation.
• Establish and govern centralized documentation and specification management systems for raw materials, packaging, finished goods, formulations, and labels — creating a single source of truth.
• Monitor regulatory developments and serve as the primary liaison for regulatory compliance activities.
• Partner with Product Development to manage ingredient documentation, claims substantiation (e.g., organic, non-GMO), and testing protocols.

Cross-Functional Partnership & Risk Management

• Lead cross-functional quality forums to ensure alignment between quality standards and aggressive commercialization timelines.
• Drive shared understanding of key quality risks and facilitate informed trade-offs between quality, brand, and commercial objectives.
• Identify food safety and business risks (e.g., sensory variance, packaging integrity, appearance) and elevate insights to senior leadership with clear recommendations.

Experience + Skills:

Required Experience & Capabilities

• 10+ years of progressive leadership experience in Food Safety and Quality Assurance within the CPG food industry.
• Deep technical expertise in food safety and quality systems, including microbiology, allergen management, HACCP, FSMA, FDA/USDA labeling, and regulatory compliance.
• Demonstrated experience leading quality organizations in high-growth, innovation-driven environments.
• Strong background in food manufacturing audits, supplier management, and contract manufacturing oversight.
• Proven ability to design and scale systems, standards, and processes across internal teams and external partners.
• Exceptional communication skills with the ability to translate technical expertise into clear, actionable business strategies.
• Highly analytical, data-driven, and results-oriented with strong problem-solving and decision-making skills.
• Strong project management skills and end-to-end understanding of new product development processes.

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Food Science, Chemistry, Microbiology, or a related field.
• Experience supporting rapid commercialization and product launch pipelines.
• Track record of leading through complexity, ambiguity, and change in fast-growing organizations.

Pay Transparency + Location:

The expected starting salary range for this role is $200,000- $250,000 per year. We may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range based on the location of the role. The amount a particular employee will earn within the salary range will be based on factors such as relevant education, qualifications, performance and business needs.  This role will be based in our Walnut Creek, CA office.

How you'll have an impact at Kinder’s: The Co-Manufacturing Quality Manager will be responsible for quality assurance at our co-pack partners for our high-growth flavor brand and will play a critical role in both defining and driving compliance with our high quality standards across our co-pack network.  You will partner with Kinder’s Co-Pack/Operations, Corporate Quality, and Product Development teams, to build an organization and processes that ensure Kinder’s delivers high quality and amazing tasting products consistently while adhering to industry best practices for food safety and quality assurance.

What are the Key Responsibilities of this Role:

Quality Assurance Strategy and Execution – 35%

• Quality / Food Safety Procedures
  • Work with internal and external teams to drive clear understanding of quality standards and establish robust capability to drive compliance with the goal of consistent quality attainment.
  • Develop / implement continuous improvement program with collaboration with manufacturing partners to ensure consistent elevation of quality standards.
• Testing Program
  • Evaluate / refine existing company testing procedures and work with internal stakeholders and manufacturing partners to develop robust, balanced program to ensure compliance with key standards.
• Process Development
  • Collaborate with PD and manufacturing partners to evaluate process development opportunities to drive consistency in lot-level quality attainment.
• Consumer Quality Support
  • Track / maintain database of consumer complaints or other quality issues.
  • Identify trends in consumer issues and, where applicable, develop corrective action plans for vendor partners or work with internal PD team to develop reformulation strategies.

Co-Manufacturing Management; Audit / Compliance – 35%

• Refine company audit process / manuals and develop clear, effective communication strategy with key manufacturing partners.
• Collaborate with operations / PD teams to evaluate new manufacturing partners and, where applicable, develop remediation / process improvement programs to ensure compliance with company standards.
• Maintain audit / regulatory / and SOP tracking systems for manufacturing partners to ensure all documentation is current and compliant with company and / or regulatory standards.
• Oversee testing at co-packers to ensure products are free of defects and in compliance with quality standards. Participate in investigations, identify quality issues, and create Corrective and Preventative Actions (CAPAs).
• Develop annual / quarterly vendor business reviews to highlight quality trends and key areas for improvement.

Regulatory / Documentation – 15%

• Monitor FDA /USDA regulatory activities and plant compliance with regulatory standards and act as a liaison for all manufacturing locations, ensuring regulatory compliance within the business unit.
• Work with PD to catalog robust item specifications and ensure that manufacturing partners are delivering consistent compliance with established standards.

Cross-Functional Partnership – 15%

• Lead cross-functional team to ensure quality standards while also achieving aggressive commercialization timelines.
• Drive clear cross-functional understanding of key quality issues / drivers and help team make intentional, active trade-offs to balance quality, brand, and commercial objectives.
• Identify any sources of food safety risk and drive clear organizational understanding and alignment on how to achieve “zero-tolerance” standard.
• Identify key sources of business risk from quality issues (e.g. variance in appearance, flavor profile, packaging look / feel) and highlight trade-offs to senior management.

What You Bring to the Table

Education / Experience

• B.S. in Food Science or related field preferred; A.S required.
• PCQI & HACCP required, Better Process Control School (Acidified Food School) preferred.
• 7+ years relevant work experience in FS/QA/QC in CPG Food and Beverage industry.
• Advanced level food safety technical knowledge, including demonstrated knowledge of microbiology, allergens, FSMA and other food regulations.
• Experience in innovation and/or product development is a plus.
• Experience with food audit procedures and systems (e.g. BRC, SQF, Tracegains) strongly preferred.
• Track record in agile creative thinking, generation of standards / processes, and working with internal and external partners.
• Collaborative business partner with a track record of helping internal and external stakeholders identify win-win solutions and driving alignment around best course of action and accountability for delivering committed outcomes.
• Proven strategic thinker excited by a dynamic, highly innovation-focused model.
• Strong analytical & quantitative acumen with ability to collect and use data to drive better, faster decision-making.
• Strong project management skills and understanding of new product development process from ideation to execution.

Personal Characteristics

• Business builder who owns and drives results.
• Growth mindset with an excitement to learn (and teach).
• Thrive in a dynamic, lean, and agile environment with proven record of completing projects on time in full through excellent cross functional team management, leadership, communication and influence.
• Self-starter who takes initiative and speaks their mind.
• Excited to be part of a fast-moving team with the ability to be a leader and a follower.
• Enjoy making decisions and finding ways to say ‘yes’ as often as possible to impactful and important priorities.

Things About the Way We Work

• No two days here are the same.
• We try to be good team members and good communicators, but we don’t live by hierarchy and structure – everyone is a difference maker here.
• We make a lot of decisions in the face of incomplete information – our team embraces ambiguity and tries to make good decisions fast rather than great decisions slow
• We believe our job is to take smart risk, not to eliminate risk.
• We believe in growing our skills and becoming a better company with more managerial expertise, but we are an entrepreneurial company at heart.
• We aren’t trying to be average – we want to do exceptional things and we are willing to work hard to achieve them.

Location & Travel

The position will be based out of our 20,000 sq. foot office in Walnut Creek, CA. We strongly believe in the power of culture and community and have a hybrid work structure with 4 days in the office on a weekly basis to encourage collaboration and personal connections that will allow us to better serve our customers and consumer and to have more fun.  We have 1 flex day per week with employees having the opportunity to choose to be either in the office or to work from home based on what makes most sense for them.

Travel approximately 50% to co-manufacturing partners and industry conferences.

The expected starting salary range for this role is $120,000- $140,000 per year. We may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range based on the location of the role. The amount a particular employee will earn within the salary range will be based on factors such as relevant education, qualifications, performance and business needs.