Director of API Operations — Interim, Active Ingredients

The mandate

A solvent-vapour explosion stopped a major API block and the operations director was dismissed after investigators found bypassed permit controls. Customer allocations and regulatory commitments now depend on a safe, evidence-led restart rather than a production-only response.

The interim is required within two weeks for eighteen months, spanning rebuild, validation and six months of stable operation. The role returns to a strengthened permanent plant organisation after regulators and insurers accept the close-out evidence.

Handover requires regulator-authorised restart, zero overdue critical process-safety actions, first-pass yield restored to eighty-eight per cent, and the permanent plant head independently completing two shutdown-startup cycles and one emergency drill.

The director may halt work, change operating sequences, approve temporary engineering controls below ₹1 crore and select contractors from vetted panels. Rebuild capital above ₹5 crore and employee separations require executive approval; Quality alone releases API, and the interim cannot settle injury claims.

New molecule scale-up, customer pricing and capacity expansion beyond replacement of damaged assets sit outside scope. The focus is safe restoration and disciplined operation of the existing authorised product slate.

Why this seat is open

The incident made continuation of prior operations leadership untenable. A conventional hire cannot be asked to learn the site while directing forensic remediation and restart. The company needs finite crisis authority until a permanent team can demonstrate safe command under observed conditions.

What you will own

• Translate investigation findings into engineered, procedural and competency controls with independent closure evidence.
• Decide the restart critical path across design review, installation, validation, training and regulator gates.
• Reinstate permit-to-work, management-of-change and pre-startup safety review with accountable authorisers.
• Recover batch yield through process discipline and deviation learning after safe-state conditions are established.
• Direct contractor mobilisation using verified competence, confined-space and hot-work controls.
• Run emergency simulations with external responders and close every command or communication failure.
• Qualify the permanent plant head through observed shutdown, startup and incident-management exercises.

Candidate qualifications

• Twenty-two-plus years leading hazardous API or chemical operations with substantial batch-processing accountability.
• Personally directed plant recovery following a fire, explosion, major containment loss or regulator-ordered shutdown.
• Expert command of process hazard analysis, management of change, permit systems and pre-startup safety review.
• Demonstrated restoration of yield and schedule only after safety-critical barriers were independently proven.
• Working knowledge of API GMP, validation, solvent recovery, effluent constraints and Quality-release independence.
• Experience testing successor readiness through observed operating events rather than classroom completion alone.

Non-negotiables

• Present at the Pune site within two weeks and available for emergency command.
• No conflict involving insurers, investigators or rebuild contractors engaged after the incident.
• Prepared to stop restart activity regardless of customer pressure when a safety gate is incomplete.
• Available for the entire eighteen-month fixed recovery window.

1. 49 words maximum. Confirm when you can reach the Pune site and assume emergency-command availability.
2. 49 words maximum. Which process-safety restart gate have you refused, and what proof was absent?
3. 49 words maximum. What yield recovery followed a hazardous-plant restart you personally led?