European Field Service Technical Director
Europe | Pan-European scope | Significant travel across Europe
Location: Europe, home-based with access to a major European travel hub.
Travel: Significant European travel, particularly during the initial transformation phase ~ 50-80%.
Working language: English.
The opportunity
Diversey, a Solenis company, is seeking an established European Field Service leader to transform and strengthen our Technical Service organisation across Europe.
This is a senior pan-European mandate with functional leadership across a large network of several hundred technicians and technical service employees. Working through Country Technical Service Directors and Managers, you will create a more consistent European operating model, strengthen leadership and governance, and improve safety, service quality, customer uptime and operational performance.
Our technicians and service partners install, connect, maintain and repair physical equipment at customer sites. Their work is critical to the safe and uninterrupted operation of our customers’ businesses.
This is an operational line-leadership role rather than a project-only transformation position. Dedicated project resources will support delivery, but you will lead the organisation, define the operating model and embed new ways of working across countries.
What you will do
Lead the European Field Service organisation
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Provide functional leadership across a large, geographically dispersed European technician and technical-service population.
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Lead and influence Country Technical Service Directors and Managers within a complex matrix organisation.
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Establish clear European priorities, standards and accountability while recognising legitimate local requirements.
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Build a connected leadership community focused on collaboration, capability development and consistent execution.
Transform the operating model
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Define and implement a practical European Field Service operating model.
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Harmonise planning, scheduling, dispatch, prioritisation, utilisation and emergency-response practices.
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Strengthen work-order management, service documentation, performance visibility and consistent use of enterprise systems.
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Standardise critical processes and governance while ensuring that change is adopted and sustained locally.
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Translate strategy into practical actions, clear ownership and measurable operational improvement.
Improve service performance
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Establish meaningful European Field Service KPIs and management routines.
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Improve safety, service quality, response time, customer uptime, first-time fix, productivity, cost-to-serve and customer satisfaction.
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Strengthen resource and capacity planning across countries.
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Create transparent reporting, escalation and corrective-action processes.
Stay connected to customers and technicians
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Spend time at customer sites with technicians and country service teams.
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Ensure that European processes work in practice for installations, preventive and corrective maintenance, breakdown response and technical interventions.
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Use direct operational insight to remove barriers, improve working practices and build credibility with the Field Service community.
Lead internal and external service capacity
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Align internal technicians and third-party technical service providers within one European model.
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Strengthen partner selection, qualification, onboarding, training and performance management.
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Establish consistent governance covering safety, technical capability, quality, service levels, cost and escalation.
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Develop external service capacity where additional geographic coverage or specialist capability is required.
What you will bring
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Significant senior leadership experience in Field Service, Technical Service, After-Sales, Customer Engineering or a closely comparable technical service organisation.
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Proven responsibility across multiple European countries or another complex international region.
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Experience leading managers and a substantial, geographically dispersed population of technicians or service engineers.
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Direct leadership experience in a customer-site environment involving the installation, maintenance and repair of physical equipment.
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Strong understanding of preventive and corrective maintenance, technical troubleshooting, service response, safety and customer-site delivery.
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Credibility with technicians and Field Service leaders, developed through direct technical or operational experience and regular exposure to customer-site operations.
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Evidence of personally transforming how a Field Service or Technical Service organisation operates through line leadership.
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Experience standardising processes, strengthening governance, implementing KPIs and embedding systems and new ways of working.
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Demonstrated ability to influence senior country leaders and deliver change through a matrix.
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Experience governing contractors, authorised service organisations, distributors or technical service partners.
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A strong service culture and an understanding of how responsiveness, uptime, safety, quality and cost-to-serve affect customer operations and business performance.
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Fluent written and spoken English.
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Willingness and ability to travel extensively across Europe.
Additional experience that would be advantageous
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Experience in hygiene, dosing systems, warewashing, commercial laundry, foodservice equipment or another comparable customer-site service environment.
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Experience in lifts and elevators, industrial machinery, automation, HVAC, building systems, medical or laboratory equipment, water treatment, packaging or similar installed-equipment sectors.
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Experience leading both direct technical teams and outsourced service networks.
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P&L, service-budget or cost-management responsibility.
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Experience implementing Field Service Management, CRM, ERP, work-order or workforce-planning systems.
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Professional capability in another European language.
Is this the right opportunity for you?
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This role requires an established European Field Service leader who has already led managers, sizeable technical populations and meaningful operational change.
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Experience centred primarily on Customer Service, sales, PMO or transformation programmes, software support, product engineering, helpdesks or internal plant maintenance will not be sufficient unless it is accompanied by directly comparable customer-site Field Service leadership at scale.
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You will be comfortable moving between strategy and operations: setting a European direction, influencing country leaders, visiting customer sites and ensuring that change works for the technicians and customers it affects.
Why join us?
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A high-impact European mandate with visible sponsorship and genuine transformation scope.
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The opportunity to shape how a major technical service population works across countries, internal teams and external partners.
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Direct influence on customer uptime, safety, service quality, operational performance and retention.
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A dynamic international environment within a global organisation committed to sustainability, innovation and customer value.
Diversey – A Solenis Company is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, race, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status or any other characteristic protected by law.
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