GM/Unit Head

HORIZON WELLNESS INDUSTRIES LIMITED - Ogun State, Nigeria

Role Profile - General Manager/ Unit Head

Ogun Factory — Site P&L 

About Horizon Wellness 
Horizon Wellness Industries Limited is a Nigerian FMCG manufacturer and a leading bottled water 
producer in Southwest Nigeria. Operating from its factory in Ogun State, the company produces and 
distributes local and international brands across Lagos and the wider Southwest corridor. The business 
runs modern production infrastructure — automated filling lines, a full water treatment plant, preform 
manufacturing, a CCM unit, and an automated warehousing environment — combined with a growing 
distribution network across open-market, institutional, and modern-trade channels. 
Horizon is owner-led, with a capable management team and clear ambition to scale. The business is in 
the middle of a defining period — a full ERP implementation, organisation-wide process transformation, 
and a step-change in operating discipline — and is recruiting a senior operator to take executive 
accountability for the Ogun factory site, including its P&L. The role is a single seat: General Manager / 
Unit Head, the most senior on-site executive and the right hand to the owners on everything operational 
and commercial at the site. 

Role Details 

• General Manager / Unit Head — Horizon Wellness (Ogun Factory) 
• Reporting To Owners 
• Location Ogun State, Nigeria — factory-based 
• Direct Reportee-  Production Manager, Operations Manager, Quality Head, Maintenance Head, Stores Head; Financial Controller (dotted line for finance partnership)

Primary Year-1 Mandate Own the site P&L. Establish operating discipline across the factory. 
Provide executive oversight of the ongoing ERP implementation in partnership with Finance and the owners. Orientation P&L-accountable operator — owns the site number. Operationally embedded, factory-based, and finance-literate. A working GM, not a remote executive. 

This is a site P&L seat. The successful candidate owns the number.

Role Overview

Horizon Wellness Industries Limited. General Manager / Unit Head — Role Profile

Page 3 of | Role profile — for distribution to approved recruiters and shortlisted candidates

• This is a General Manager / Unit Head role — the most senior executive on site, reporting directly to the owners. The successful candidate carries single-point accountability for the Ogun factory P&L. 
• Around that P&L sits the day-to-day running of the site and the operating discipline that holds it together — but the central accountability is the number. 
• The role is operationally embedded. It is run from the factory floor, not from a Lagos office. 
• The GM chairs the daily and weekly operating cadence, owns the site KPIs, holds the functional heads to their commitments, and is the final decision-maker on site for material operational events. 
• Year 1 has a defining workstream alongside the day-to-day: Horizon ERP implementation. 
• The GM provides executive oversight of that programme in partnership with Finance and the owners — chairing 
  site-level steering, owning the operations side of master data and process design, owning change 
  management on the floor, and signing off operational readiness for cutover. 
• The GM is not the technical Finance-module designer (that sits with the Financial Controller), but is the executive who makes sure the business runs through the implementation and lands on the other side with discipline intact. 
  Beyond Year 1, this is the operational and commercial engine of the business at site level — the seat 
  that turns owner ambition into delivered volume, margin, and cash. 
   

Scope of the Role 
Site P&L Ownership 
• Full ownership of the Ogun site P&L — revenue conversion, cost of goods, overhead absorption, contribution margin, and EBITDA at site level. This is the central accountability of the role. 
• Partner with the Financial Controller to govern monthly close, variance analysis, and the operating cadence around the numbers — but own the number, do not delegate it. 
• Hold the site to its budget and to its working-capital targets — DSO, DPO, DIO, and inventory turns. 
• Defend the site cost base line by line; lead margin-improvement programmes year on year. 

Operational Leadership (Unit Head) 
• Day-to-day operational accountability for the Ogun factory site — production, quality, maintenance, warehousing, dispatch, stores, and site services — in service of the P&L. 
• Chair of the daily and weekly site operational reviews; final escalation point for site-level decisions; direct line to the owners on material operational events. 
• Single point of accountability for site KPIs, anchored on P&L: volume delivered, OEE, quality, maintenance reliability, cost per carton, working capital, and safety. 
• Executive oversight of the ongoing ERP implementation in partnership with Finance and the 
owners — own the operations side, sponsor change management on the floor, and sign off 
operational readiness for cutover. 
• Champion process discipline across the site: SOPs, approvals, master data quality, shift handovers, stock takes, daily cash, and the monthly close cadence. 

Commercial & Stakeholder Leadership 
• Executive support to the owners on commercial strategy, channel economics, pricing, and growth planning at site level. 
• Senior site representation for NAFDAC, regulators, auditors, major customers, strategic suppliers and visiting partners. 
 

Key Responsibilities 
1. Site P&L Ownership (Central Accountability) 
• Own the Ogun site P&L end-to-end. This is the single most important thing the role does — everything else exists to deliver this number. 
• Walk the owners through the P&L monthly with variance commentary, drivers, and corrective actions — not just numbers, but a narrative on what the numbers are telling you and what you are doing about it. 
• Own contribution margin and overhead absorption at site level. Defend the cost base line by line at least annually; lead zero-based reviews on overheads where appropriate. 
• Translate operational events into P&L impact in real time — a downtime hour, a quality hold, a dispatch delay, a chemical price move, an FX shift on imported inputs — and act before the impact accumulates. 
• Hold the site to its budget and to its working-capital targets (DSO, DPO, DIO, inventory turns); intervene when any line drifts. 
• Partner with the Financial Controller on monthly close, flux analysis, and the operating review pack for the owners — but own the conclusions, do not delegate them. 
• Lead the sites contribution to annual budgeting and rolling forecasts; sign off on the assumptions behind the numbers, not just the numbers themselves. 

2. Operational Leadership of the Site 
• Act as the most senior executive on site — the owners; right hand for all operational matters, in service of the site P&L. 
• Chair the daily and weekly operational cadence: shift reviews, production meetings, quality reviews, maintenance reviews, dispatch reviews, stores reviews. 
• Own site-level operational KPIs that drive the P&L: volume delivered, OEE across filling and preform lines, quality (NCR, CAPA, NAFDAC compliance), maintenance reliability, cost per carton, working capital, and safety. 
• Drive accountability across Production, Operations, Quality, Maintenance, and Stores — hold each functional head to documented weekly commitments tied to P&L outcomes. 
• Be the final decision-maker on site for material operational events — breakdowns beyond escalation thresholds, quality holds, supply disruptions, safety incidents. 

3. ERP Implementation Oversight 
• Provide executive oversight of the ongoing ERP implementation at site level, in partnership with Finance and the owners — chair site steering, govern timeline, own operational readiness. 
• Own the operations side of master data: items, BOMs, routings, locations, work centres, and approval hierarchies on the operations and procurement side. 
• Own change management on the floor: SOPs, training, role-based access, and a structured cutover plan. An ERP succeeds or fails on people, not on software. 
• Sign off operational readiness for cutover. Do not allow go-live on an unfinished operational foundation. 
• Establish post-go-live stabilisation on the operations side: defect triage, parallel running where 
needed, and the new operating cadence on the live system. 

4. Process Discipline & Standardisation :-
• Champion operational discipline at the executive level: shift handovers, stock takes, daily cash, weekly reviews, monthly close, quarterly planning. No improvisation on recurring rhythms. 
• Build the process and control spine of the site — approvals, segregation of duties, delegation of authority, and the operations policy framework. 
• Enforce data discipline across all functions — no parallel spreadsheets, no informal approvals, no WhatsApp-based commitments. Everything through the system. 
• Drive continuous improvement: process audits, controls walk-throughs, Kaizen, and honest post- mortems on every significant failure. 

5. Production, Quality & Maintenance Governance -
• Hold Production accountable for OEE, yield, scrap, and shift discipline — daily. 
• Hold Quality accountable for NCR closure, CAPA discipline, NAFDAC compliance, and a credible 
Hold/Release regime — daily. 
• Hold Maintenance accountable for breakdown response time, MTBF, PM completion rate, and 
spare parts discipline — daily. 
• Sponsor the maintenance and quality programmes at executive level — PM templates, calibration schedules, CIP discipline, and the spares-stock-accuracy regime. 

6. Working Capital, Procurement & Stores Discipline 
• Set and enforce working-capital targets at site level: DSO on factory-gate sales, DPO on supplier payments, DIO across raw material, packaging, WIP, finished goods, and spares.
• Own inventory accuracy and stock-take discipline at the site — monthly cycle counts, full physicals 
on cadence, and zero-tolerance variance investigation. 
• Govern procurement discipline at site level: requisition through PO through GRN through three- 
way match, with no exceptions to the approval matrix. 
• Hold Stores accountable for inwards GRN discipline, NAFDAC inspection coordination, issue-to- 
production traceability, and FG dispatch readiness. 

7. Commercial Coordination & Distribution Support 
• Be the site-side counterpart to Sales & Distribution — own production planning against demand, dispatch readiness, and on-time-in-full (OTIF) performance. 
• Partner with Sales on monthly demand sign-off, capacity allocation, and trade-off decisions when capacity is constrained. 
• Own factory-gate pricing inputs (cost per carton, channel-specific pack economics) and feed them into the commercial team. 
• Support new product and pack-size introductions from a manufacturability, costing, and capacity standpoint. 

8. Compliance, HSE & Regulatory 
• Hold the site accountable for NAFDAC compliance, factory licensing, environmental compliance, and any other applicable Nigerian regulatory regimes. 
• Sponsor the HSE programme at executive level — incident reporting discipline, near-miss culture, monthly HSE reviews, and corrective-action closure. 
• Be the senior on-site representative for inspections and audits — NAFDAC, NESREA, fire, factories inspectorate, customer audits, and external auditors. 
• Own the site & risk register: regulatory, operational, supply, safety, reputational. 

9. People Leadership & Capability Building 
• Build and coach the site leadership team — Production, Operations, Quality, Maintenance, Stores — into a high-accountability operating group. 
• Embed a culture of accountability, operational discipline, analytical rigour, and commercial curiosity. Set the tone. 
• Manage performance directly — recognise good work, address underperformance early, and make the call on promotions, replacements, and structural changes when needed. 
• Partner with HR on the site capability plan — recruitment, training, succession, and shift- supervisor development. 

10. MIS, Reporting & Cadence 
• Govern the site reporting architecture in partnership with the Financial Controller — what is reported, to whom, on what cadence, against which targets. 
• Run monthly business reviews with the functional heads; hold them to their numbers with data, 
not opinion. 
• Own the operating dashboards used by the owners and the executive group — make sure they 
show the truth, not the comfortable version. 
• Build the post-ERP MIS architecture in partnership with Finance — the operating system for how 
the site is reviewed once the ERP is live. 

11. Stakeholder & Owner Engagement 
• Be the owners & single point of contact for the site — clear, candid, structured, and on cadence. 
• Brief the owners weekly on the operational picture and monthly on the P&L; flag risks early; bring solutions, not just problems. 
• Represent the site externally with gravitas: regulators, auditors, institutional customers, strategic suppliers, banks (in coordination with Finance), and potential partners. 
• Act as a thought partner to the owners on the toughest operational and commercial questions at site level. 

Qualifications & Experience-
• Substantial Nigerian manufacturing experience — minimum 8 years in senior operational and/or 
general management roles within Nigerian manufacturing or FMCG. Non-negotiable. 

Candidates without direct Nigerian manufacturing experience will not be shortlisted. 
• Demonstrated operational leadership at executive level in a manufacturing site — proven track 
record running, or co-running, a factory as Plant Director, Plant Head, Factory Manager, Unit 
Head, GM, or equivalent. Non-negotiable. 
• Personally held site-level P&L accountability at a comparable or larger scale, with a track record of 
margin and cash improvement. Non-negotiable. 
• Strong financial and accounting literacy — chartered accountant qualification (ICAN, ACCA, ICAI, 
CIMA, CPA, or equivalent) preferred; a strong commercial MBA with substantive finance 
grounding will also be considered. 

The candidate must be able to read, challenge, and own a P&L and a balance sheet — not delegate it. 
• Demonstrated operating fluency in a live ERP environment — SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics, or 
equivalent — over multiple years. 
• Track record of driving organisational process discipline — approval matrices, master data 
discipline, SOPs, and operating cadence — across a multi-functional site. 
• Minimum 15 years of post-qualification experience, with at least 5 years in a site-level executive 
seat (Plant Director, Unit Head, GM, or equivalent). 
• Personal orientation is operationally embedded and process-driven; comfortable making decisions 
on the floor and in the boardroom on the same day.

Role profile — for distribution to approved recruiters and shortlisted candidates 
• Comfortable with a factory-based role in Ogun State, Nigeria, with daily on-site presence. Suitable 
for both single candidates and candidates bringing family. 

Strongly Preferred 
• Prior GM, Plant Director, Unit Head, or Factory Manager experience in a Nigerian FMCG, beverage, food, or consumer manufacturing business. 
• Direct experience as part of an ERP implementation programme — operations workstream lead, change-management owner, or steering member — even if not as the technical Finance-module designer. 
• Career path that started in audit, finance, or FP&A and crossed into operations or general management. 
• Formal Lean, Six Sigma, TPM, or business-process re-engineering training. 
• Experience with a modern operational backbone — SharePoint-driven processes, Power Automate approvals, Power BI / Tableau dashboards. 
• Experience in owner-led or family-owned businesses; comfort operating without a large corporate scaffold. 
• Experience navigating periods of significant change — capacity expansion, ERP cutover, ownership transition, or a step-change in operating discipline. 

The Person We Are Looking For 
The right person for this role combines four attributes: the instincts of an operator who has run a factory at executive level, the financial literacy of someone trained in accounting or commercial finance, the discipline of a process leader, and the temperament to live on a factory site rather than commute to one. 
They are operationally embedded by nature. They run a site from the floor and from the daily review, not from a corner office. They know the operators by name, they catch problems in the morning huddle, and they hold their functional heads to their commitments without flinching. 
They are commercially fluent. They can read a P&L, challenge a variance, defend a cost line, and translate an operational event into a margin impact in real time. They do not need a Financial Controller to interpret the numbers for them — they own the numbers. 
They are direct, calm under pressure, and willing to hold uncomfortable lines — with Sales on commitments, with Procurement on pricing, with the implementation partner on scope, and with the owners when the operating reality does not support the ambition. They build trust through consistency and follow-through, not charisma.

They understand that at Horizon the operating system of the business is being shaped, not inherited — 
and they see that as the opportunity, not the problem. They are coming for the build, not for the steady 
state. 

What Horizon Offers 
• A direct seat at the top of the business — unfiltered access to the owners, meaningful influence over operational and commercial direction, and the mandate to shape how the site operates for the next decade. 
• Full P&L responsibility at site level, with the authority to act on it. 
• Executive oversight of a once-in-a-decade ERP and process-transformation programme, in 
partnership with Finance and the owners. 
• Factory-based role on the Ogun site, within comfortable reach of Lagos — suitable for both single 
candidates and candidates bringing family. 
• A modern operational backbone already in place: SharePoint-backed processes, Power Automate 
approval chains, live control dashboards, and a single-source-of-truth ERP transition in progress. 
• A capable executive peer set and owner-led leadership that is ready to empower the right hire — 
with real authority, not decoration. 
• A business with genuine growth ambition: new lines, new geographies, new channels, and a clear 
runway to the next stage of scale. 

Interested candidates and recruiters should submit: 
• A current CV, detailing Nigerian manufacturing or FMCG experience, site-level P&L accountability, 
and any prior ERP implementation involvement. 
• A short covering note (≤1 page) covering: (a) what attracted you to this role, (b) the single most 
material operational or P&L turnaround you have personally led — with specifics, and (c) what you 
would prioritise in your first 90 days at Horizon. 
• Two professional references, one of whom must be a former MD, CEO, Chair, or Board member. 
Applications without Nigerian manufacturing experience and site-level P&L accountability will not be 
shortlisted.