Director, Food Safety, Quality & Regulatory- International

Company Description

International Dairy Queen, Inc. (IDQ), based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is the parent company of American Dairy Queen Corporation and Dairy Queen Canada, Inc. Through its subsidiaries, IDQ develops, licenses, and services a system of more than 7,800 DQ restaurants in more than 20 countries. IDQ is a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. For more information, visit DairyQueen.com.

Here at IDQ, we create extraordinary Fan experiences every day and we do this through our commitment to hiring and retaining only the best in class talent. We firmly believe that our employees are the catalyst to the success of the company where their initiative, strategic thinking, and entrepreneurial spirit are recognized and rewarded. We're looking for motivated, passionate and dedicated individuals with an inherent need and ambition to go after bigger challenges.

Job Description

We have an exciting opportunity available for a Director, Food Safety, Quality & Regulatory supporting our international regions working hybrid out of our corporate office in Bloomington, MN.  This position provides international strategic leadership and direction within the Food, Safety, Quality and Regulatory team.  While it has a significant number of within-department responsibilities, it also works with cross-functional teams to deliver high quality and safe products to restaurants, ensure regulatory compliance, and lead select corporate responsibility initiatives.   

This position supports all international regions and markets, which includes China, Asia Pacific, Middle East, Latin America & Caribbean, along with new market entry from a FSQR perspective.

Key Accountabilities Include:

Food Safety and Quality                                                                                                                    

Leads and directs strategic development, improvement, implementation, execution, measurement and communication of risk based quality and food safety programs, tools and outcomes that are designed to deliver safe and high-quality food for Dairy Queen business lines.  Key areas of responsibility within this accountability include:

• Vendor, product (food, packaging, and chemicals), commissary and warehouse qualification, onboarding, compliance, risk assessment and management
• Specification compliance – tools, measurement, reporting, trends, feedback and continuous improvement
• Issue resolution: Proactively and reactively monitor, manage and communicate quality and food safety issues (complaint response, holds, withdrawals, recalls, recovery, crises, guest incidents), including determining root cause analysis
• Identifies trends and applies advanced technical knowledge and skills to solve problems develop corrective actions for on-going supplier quality issues related to product manufacturing and quality control. 
• Work with Product Development, Legal and Supply Chain to define process parameters and criteria to ensure supplier process capability is effective and compliant to all laws/regulations required 
• Technical problem solving
• Partnership with Product Development during development and test phase   

Relationship Building and Communication                                                                                                        

• Develops positive cross functional (within IDQ) and external relationships (suppliers, government, industry associations, industry leaders) that generate strategic direction, business solutions, create trust, and help develop future department strategies that align with the evolving business.
• Identifies situations that warrant communication and promptly and effectively communicates need-to-know FSQR items to internal and external stakeholders

Team and Department Leadership                                                                                                 

• Develops strategies and team & department goals that align with department mission and business goals
• Provides routine coaching and direction to team members to help ensure department and company goals are prioritized and met
• Identifies and implements strategies to generate team member satisfaction and productivity
• Elevates team or project issues to department and company leadership as appropriate
• Provides input to and helps manage department budget

Restaurant Food Safety (as assigned)                                                                                       

• Directs team members to or as a contributor, monitors and interprets restaurant regulatory and food safety changes (e.g., Food Code, nutrition, etc.) and communicates to and collaborates with internal stakeholders on solutions.  May be asked to lead compliance projects. 

Corporate responsibility (