Sr Director, Operations and Supply Chain

About Us

Connected International, Inc. (Connected Cannabis Co.) is a leading vertically integrated cannabis company based in Sacramento and operating in California, Arizona, and Florida. With over 11 years experience, Connected specializes in breeding, growing, manufacturing, and distributing top-shelf cannabis through its state-of-the-art facilities and proprietary genetics.

With over 250 employees across the United States, Connected maintains a strong presence in the industry across multiple markets. The company has recently expanded into Arizona and Florida with ambitious national expansion plans underway. Connected's mission has always been to breed, grow, and sell the best cannabis in the world, setting high standards for its products, people, and partners wherever we go.

About the Job

The Sr Director, Operations is responsible for leading and optimizing the end-to-end California operating system, spanning supply planning, manufacturing, production, demand planning, distribution, order fulfillment, and fleet operations. This leader manages through its functional leaders while creating the accountability, operating cadence, and performance standards required to deliver high service levels, consistent quality, and efficient cost structures. While not responsible for cultivation, this leader must also understand cultivation outputs well enough to understand the timing, quality, and characteristics of incoming biomass and translate that supply into effective production and biomass pathway decisions.

Success in this role requires a strong understanding of customer needs, industry dynamics, operational best practices, and hands-on leadership to deliver measurable impact and longterm value across the organization. This position is based in the Sacramento, California area and requires daily onsite presence across facilities.

What You Will Do

• Lead California Operations: Provide strategic and operational leadership across the operations network, including supply planning, manufacturing, production, packaging, warehousing, distribution, fulfillment, and fleet operations.

• Own Supply & Production Planning: Lead integrated demand and supply planning/S&OP in conjunction with capacity planning, inventory strategy, and biomass allocation to align with commercial objectives while minimizing stockouts and aging inventory.

• Drive Operational Accountability: Establish clear KPIs, targets, budgets, and operating rhythms across functional areas; regularly review performance, identify root causes, and drive timely corrective and preventive actions.

• Build Best-in-Class Operations: Develop and maintain standardized operating procedures, efficient workflows and manufacturing layouts, disciplined inventory controls, and scalable operating systems that promote safety, quality, compliance, efficiency, and consistency.

• Optimize Cost, Productivity & Performance: Continuously improve labor, material, freight, inventory, yield, cycle time, equipment utilization, and overall operating costs without compromising service, quality, or compliance.

• Translate Cultivation Supply into Operations: Maintain visibility into cultivation forecasts, harvest timing, biomass quality, and expected volumes to proactively adjust production schedules, processing pathways, capacity, and inventory plans.

• Lead Continuous Improvement & Capital Planning: Identify and execute opportunities in technology, equipment, automation, systems, process improvements, and facility capacity; develop business cases and lead capital planning and implementation to support growth and scalability.

• Manage Suppliers & External Partners: Lead strategic vendor and service-provider relationships, including sourcing, negotiations, performance management, risk mitigation, issue resolution, and business reviews to ensure material availability, service levels, quality, and cost effectiveness.

• Lead Quality, Safety & Compliance: Champion a culture of safety, quality, accountability, and continuous improvement while ensuring compliance with applicable state, local, regulatory, and company quality requirements. Lead root-cause analysis and corrective actions for operational and quality issues.

• Support Product Launches & Operational Transitions: Partner with Commercial, Cultivation, and other stakeholders to translate product and technology roadmaps into operational requirements and successfully execute product launches, new product introduction, process changes, and transitions to scaled production.

• Build Cross-Functional Alignment: Partner closely with Cultivation, Sales, Commercial, Finance, Compliance, R&D, and other stakeholders to align operating plans, resources, and priorities with business objectives and customer commitments.

• Develop High-Performing Teams: Lead, recruit, mentor, and develop functional leaders and operations teams; establish clear ownership and accountability, strengthen leadership capability and succession planning, and foster a data-driven culture of continuous improvement.

• Manage Financial & Operational Reporting: Own operating budgets, forecasts, cost-control initiatives, and performance reporting; provide timely analysis and recommendations to management to support informed business decisions.

Supervisory Responsibilities: This position provides leadership and oversight for the Operations Department and is responsible for organizational structure, performance management, hiring, development, and accountability of Operations team members.

What We Are Looking For

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Engineering, or a related field.

• 10+ years of progressive leadership experience in multi-facility manufacturing industries.

• Proven ability to lead large, cross-functional teams in a fast-paced environment.

• Hands on ERP experience, critical

• Experience with continuous improvement methodologies and operational excellence programs.

• Excellent communication, leadership, and problem-solving skills.

• Strong financial acumen with experience in budgeting and P&L management.

• Ability to travel ~25% of time - regular monthly travel, required.

Compensation Description (annually): The salary range for this position in the selected city is $150,000.00 - $200,000.00 annually.

Compensation may vary outside of this range depending on a number of factors, including a candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies and experience, and location.

Physical Requirements/Workplace Environment

• Requires normal, corrective vision range, the ability to see color and the ability to distinguish letters, numbers and symbols.

• Requires normal hearing range.

• Workplace is a hybrid office setting with frequent travel

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this position. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of the position.

Why Connected?

Connected is an exciting and innovative workplace with a highly engaged workforce brought together by a shared passion to be the best in the business. We are on a mission to breed, grow and sell the best cannabis in the world! This is a super unique opportunity to be part of the start-up stage of the booming cannabis industry. We are looking for exceptional people to join our team as we transition into the next phase of our business ventures and become a leader in the cannabis space.

• Competitive Pay and Stock Options

• 401(k), Medical, Dental, Vision, Life Insurance

• Paid Vacation Time (Flexible Vacation policy for exempt positions)

• Career Growth and Internal Advancement Opportunities

• Chance to work in an exciting new start-up industry with awesome people!

Note: This job description in no way states or implies that these are the only duties to be performed by the employee(s) incumbent to this position. Employees will be required to follow any other job-related instructions and to perform any other job-related duties requested by any person authorized to give instruction or assignments. All duties and responsibilities are essential functions and requirements and are subject to possible modification to reasonably accommodate individuals with disabilities. To perform this job successfully, the incumbents will possess the skills, aptitudes, and abilities to perform each duty proficiently. Some requirements may exclude individuals who pose a direct threat or significant risk to the health or safety of themselves or others. The requirements listed in this document are the minimum levels of knowledge, skills, or abilities. This document does not create an employment contract, implied or otherwise, other than an “at-will” relationship.

The company is an Equal Opportunity Employer, a drug free workplace, and complies with ADA regulations as applicable.

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