General Manager, Vice President - Life Science Optics

If you’re looking for a special place to build or grow your career, you’ve found it. Whether you’re an experienced professional, a recent college graduate or somewhere in between, IDEX is a place where you can apply your existing skills and learn new ones in an environment where you can make an impact.

With interesting opportunities in engineering, marketing, sales, supply chain, operations, HR, finance, and more across more than 40 diverse businesses around the globe, chances are, we have something special for you.

JOB TITLE: Vice President, General Manager- Life Science Optics

SITE LOCATION: Rochester, NY preferred, open to remote in NE US region

IDEX Corporation (NYSE: IEX), based in Northbrook, IL (suburb of Chicago), is a leading global manufacturer of diversified products in industries ranging across health, science, safety, fire, and fluidics. The company operates in 24 countries, IDEX is an innovative and growing company, focused on delivering excellence through diverse, winning teams. We’re a global provider of applied solutions serving a variety of markets. These include life science and medical technologies, process industry and infrastructure related applications, industrial/municipal fire, and rescue - to name just a few.

IDEX Health & Science is the global leader in fluidics, microfluidics, and optics. Whether your system depends on fluid control, optical performance, or both, our technologies work together to support accuracy, reliability, and scalability across your entire system architecture. With component, sub-system, and application-level experts, we help instrument developers solve the most demanding fluidic & optical challenges in an array of applications. With over 1,000 employees globally, we believe partnership will change the way the world innovates, leading to new technologies to improve health, protect our planet, and enrich lives. Visit www.idex-hs.com

Our Optics business lines include: Semrock Optical Filters and Melles Griot Optical Systems. The team brings extensive experience with over 300 colleagues across 2 sites located in Rochester, NY and Carlsbad, CA. We develop leading components and innovative solutions to maximize performance and enable complete optimization of the optical pathway. Primary markets are spatial biology, flow cytometry, fluorescence microscopy, raman spectroscopy, and industrial, to name a few. Products: optical filters, illumination light engines, optical subsystems, imaging objectives, and auto focus modules.

This role will preferably be based in Rochester, NY or located on the East Coast

Reporting Relationships

The Life Science Optics VP/GM will report directly to the President of IDEX Health and Science. The leader will manage the R&D Engineering and Product Management teams through two direct reports: the Chief Technology Officer and the Vice President Product Management. This leadership position also has matrix reports that include Sales, Operations, Finance, and Human Resources.

Responsibilities:

The Life Science Optics VP/GM is accountable for defining and executing the business strategy, driving sustainable profitable growth, and delivering overall P&L performance. This leader provides strategic, commercial, operational, and technical leadership to accelerate organic and inorganic growth while strengthening customer partnerships and organizational capability.

Business Strategy & Growth

• •Develop, communicate, and execute the strategic plan for Life Science Optics in alignment with IH&S segment priorities.
• •Drive sustainable revenue growth by converting market insights and competitive intelligence into market expansion, customer intimacy, innovation, pricing excellence, strategic acquisitions and overall actionable growth strategies.

Commercial & Customer Leadership

• •Champion a customer-centric culture by maintaining deep engagement with key customers and strategic partners, while ensuring customer satisfaction through operational excellence in quality, delivery, responsiveness and technical support.
• •Lead market segmentation, commercial strategy, and go-to-market execution to expand market share and strengthen competitive positioning.

Innovation & Product Leadership

• •Define and execute the Product and Technology Roadmap aligned to long-term market opportunities.
• •Prioritize new product development investments that create meaningful customer value and support profitable growth by ensuring successful, timely launches and commercialization of NPD initiatives.

Operational Excellence

• •Lead deployment of the IDEX Operating Model and continuous improvement initiatives across the business, leading effectively cross-functionally to balance growth, profitability and capacity requirements.
• •Drive operational performance through disciplined execution of SIOP, quality, productivity, supply chain, and working capital management.

People & Culture

• •Build and lead a high-performing leadership team, ensuring strong talent in critical roles and a robust pipeline of ready-now and ready-next leaders
• •Foster a culture of accountability, trust, and high performance aligned with company values, ensuring accountability for both results and how they are achieved

Financial & Performance Leadership

• •Deliver commitments for Organic Growth, EBITDA, Cash Flow, Working Capital, Employee Engagement, Customer Satisfaction, and Safety.
• •Allocate resources and capital effectively to maximize long-term value creation.

This role requires the ability to travel approximately ~30-40% predominately across the U.S.

Attributes & Skills:

• •Strategic leadership : Thinks critically, anticipates market shifts, and translates insights into clear executable plans
• •Business acumen : Demonstrates strong understanding of financial, operational, and commercial drivers
• •Customer focus : Deeply understands customer needs and uses insights to shape strategy and innovation
• •Agility and decision-making : Takes calculated risks, makes timely decisions under uncertainty, and adapts effectively in complex environments
• •Results orientation and accountability : Drives high-performance with discipline, and consistently delivers financial and operational commitments through others
• •Talent leadership : Builds strong, high-performing, and engaged teams; invests in developing leaders
• •Leadership presence : Inspires followership, builds trust, and engages teams across geographies and levels
• •Values-based leadership : Demonstrates ownership mindset, humility, builds trust, and demonstrates a strong commitment to culture and ethics

Qualifications:

• •Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree preferred
• •12+ years of progressive leadership experience with accountability for business performance, including P&L ownership in a Life Science, Biotech, Diagnostics, Analytical Instrumentation, or highly engineered technology environment.
• •Demonstrated track record of driving profitable growth, commercial expansion, and operational improvement in competitive markets
• •Strong financial acumen with the ability to manage and optimize full P&L performance
• •Demonstrated ability to lead through influence in a matrixed organization, aligning commercial, operational, engineering, and functional teams toward common objectives.
• •Track record as an agent of change, who has established customer-centric and engineering-minded teams that are leading through collaborative partnerships.
• •Excellent communication, relationship building and leadership skills with ability to evaluate organizations and their talent, as well as align them with customer and organizational goals.
• •Experience integrating acquired entities successfully into a larger corporate environment.
• •Extensive global business experience. A strong commercial background, ability to effectively influence across geographies. Outstanding customer-facing communications skills.
• •A “hands on” professional who leads by example and inspires individuals at the company, a