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VALPEO

Leadership, culture, and organization advisory

Technical Manager - Maintenance & Automation

Full-TimeUpdated on 10/15/2026
No salary listed
Expert
Mouscron, Belgium
In Person
Mechanical EngineeringMechanical Maintenance and Reliability Engineering

About the job

Requirements
  • Experience as a people manager in an industrial environment.
  • Experience leading people and teams in maintenance, engineering, and/or automation.
  • Experience in food, FMCG, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, or a comparable environment with high safety and operational-discipline demands is desirable.
  • Technical understanding of preventive and corrective maintenance, failure analysis, work preparation, utilities, electricity, mechanics, PLCs, automation, and investment preparation.
  • Ability to take a broader view beyond daily breakdowns and set appropriate priorities.
  • Ability to lead hands-on and remain visible on the plant floor.
  • Ability to handle strong personalities, technical experts, external partners, and established practices while directing people clearly, consistently, and respectfully.
  • Ability to take a systems view of the technical organization and understand how to improve its maturity step by step.
  • Stakeholder-management capability to engage management, operations, PPA, quality, safety, HR, finance, continuous improvement, and technical partners in a clear, substantiated plan.
  • Fluency in Dutch and French, with sufficient ability to communicate in English.
Responsibilities
  • Lead the technical department and ensure maintenance, breakdown follow-up, work preparation, automation, safety, quality, costs, and team development support a stable, high-performing plant.
  • Build the technical department into a cohesive team of teams, enabling employees and external partners across shifts to collaborate, share knowledge, and take responsibility.
  • Organize reliable planning, execution, and follow-up of preventive maintenance, corrective interventions, spare-parts management, technical escalations, and failure analyses.
  • Add structure to a currently reactive environment and move maintenance toward increased planning, prevention, and systematic problem-solving.
  • Be visibly present on the plant floor, guide teams, identify needs, and intervene when safety, quality, or conduct expectations are not met.
  • Translate plant objectives and PPA frameworks for technical standards, automation principles, and investment priorities into a workable local approach.
  • Present substantiated local technical needs, risks, capacity issues, and improvement opportunities to plant management and PPA.
  • Remain hands-on when needed while retaining ownership of the systems, people, priorities, routines, and collaboration needed to strengthen the technical department sustainably.
  • Contribute as a member of the local plant management team to decisions on investments, organizational structure, culture, and site professionalization.
Desired Qualifications
  • Experience in food, FMCG, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, or a comparable environment with high safety and operational-discipline demands.

About the company

VALPEO provides diagnostic tools and advisory services to help leaders align leadership, culture and organizational structure with strategic direction in complex environments. Its Transformative Value Framework and proprietary Dx instruments reveal how value is created across different levels of complexity and what kind of leadership and culture are needed to sustain it. It works with multinationals, family businesses, government bodies and PE-backed firms on integration, transformation and value-creation journeys. The company aims to help organizations understand and enhance their real capacity to think, decide and act under complexity to achieve lasting value.

Company Size

11-50

Company Stage

N/A

Total Funding

N/A

Headquarters

City of Brussels, Belgium

Founded

2016

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Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • VALPEO won Best Executive Search Firm in July 2026, strengthening deal credibility.
  • The company’s multi-country footprint supports cross-border mandates without heavy fixed infrastructure.
  • LinkedIn lists 3912 followers and multiple offices, signaling brand reach beyond Belgium.

What critics are saying

  • No funding disclosure suggests a bootstrapped services business with limited growth capital.
  • Eleven to fifty employees creates key-person risk if partners leave in 2026.
  • Big consultancies and search firms can bundle offerings and compress VALPEO pricing quickly.

What makes VALPEO unique

  • VALPEO combines executive search, assessment, coaching, and organization design in one advisory shop.
  • The firm won Best Executive Search Firm at HR Excellence Awards Belgium 2026.
  • Its partner network spans Brussels, Antwerp, London, Amsterdam, Dubai, Nairobi, Paris, and Neuchâtel.

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Benefits

Performance Bonus