Senior Executive, Quality Control

About the role

Pwani Oil Products Ltd is looking for a hands-on laboratory leader to take ownership of Quality Control for our Home & Personal Care division. As Senior Executive, Quality Control, you will own quality across our HPC product lines from the laboratory bench to the executive table. You will lead a multidisciplinary team spanning chemistry QC, microbiology, water & effluent, and blending oversight, and you will be the point person who turns laboratory data into decisions the business can act on.

Key responsibilities

Laboratory management and analytical operations

• Own the day-to-day running of the HPC laboratory across chemistry QC, and govern microbiology, water and effluent quality through the team.
• Manage the full analytical scope from raw material receipt through in-process to finished product release.
• Own test methods: establishment, validation and verification, and the investigation of out-of-specification and discrepant results to root cause and corrective action.
• Maintain and troubleshoot the instrument fleet (e.g. HPLC, GC, UV-Vis, FTIR), including calibration, maintenance, service contracts and backup routes for critical tests.
• Set and hold turnaround time, accuracy and data-quality targets, and report quality KPIs to Level 1 management.

People, competency and standards

• Build analyst competency: qualification, training, reassessment, and ensuring methods are replicated consistently across analysts and shifts.
• Run the laboratory to an audit-ready ISO 22716 GMP standard, with sound GLP, ALCOA+ data integrity, audit trails and CAPA discipline.
• Manage laboratory consumables, reagents, safety, environmental monitoring, inventory and procurement/requisition workflow. Compliance, systems and cross-functional quality
• Own regulatory compliance across the relevant regulators and the KEBS Scheme of Supervision and Control. • Govern water and effluent quality to NEMA requirements, including ETP oversight.
• Drive full adoption of the laboratory digital system (LIMS) across all shifts.
• Protect new product launches and reformulations through proper trial governance, and partner with production, planning, R&D and finance.

Essential

1. Experience. At least 5 years in a busy, high-throughput laboratory, including at least 2 years in a supervisory role.
2. Education. Bachelor's degree in Analytical/Industrial Chemistry, Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Microbiology, Food Science or a related science. A Master's is not required.
3. Demonstrable, hands-on laboratory management. You have personally owned a working laboratory methods, instruments, consumables, inventory, turnaround time, accuracy, records and reporting.
4. Broad instrument exposure. You personally operate or manage a range of analytical instruments (e.g. HPLC, UV-Vis, FTIR, moisture/loss-on-drying, titration). Breadth matters more than depth in a single technique.
5. Method validation and result integrity. You've validated or verified methods and investigated discrepant or out-of-specification results to root cause, revising procedures to remove variability.
6. Analyst competency and training. You run a structured competency assessment, qualification and training process for analysts.
7. End-to-end QC understanding. You understand quality control from raw-material receipt to finished-product release, and how it overlaps with production, planning, R&D, finance and regulators.
8. Digital quality. You have hands-on experience with a LIMS or equivalent laboratory digital system.
9. Microbiology and water/effluent governance. You can run or govern microbiology, water and NEMA effluent quality. Recent hands-on experience is preferred; where it isn't recent, you can clearly govern these functions through your team.
10. Quality systems. Sound grasp of ISO 22716 GMP, GLP, ALCOA+ data integrity, audit trails and CAPA management.

Preferred

1. Experience supervising a contract or commercial testing laboratory
2. FMCG or chemical manufacturing background.
3. Soap and oleochemical chemistry (added advantage).
4. ISO 9001 auditor certification.