Quality Manager

Vita Coco is the leading coconut water brand in the world, built on a simple idea: bring better-for-you, natural hydration to more people. Since starting in 2004, we’ve grown into a global business with teams in New York, London, and Singapore, and we’re now publicly traded on NASDAQ under COCO.

As a Public Benefit Corporation and Certified B Corp, we’re committed to supporting farming communities, sourcing responsibly, and building products that are better for people and the planet. We move fast, stay scrappy, and care deeply about doing the right thing.

We’re now looking for someone who’s excited to join a growing, purpose-driven company and help shape what comes next.

Our Values:

Human First: We lead with inclusivity, transparency, and empathy.

Nothing is Impossible: We experiment, learn, and keep moving forward.

United by Our Will to Win: We stay aligned, work collaboratively, and push toward shared goals.

Part of Something Bigger: We’re committed to uplifting the communities we’re connected to locally and globally

The Quality Manager - APAC is the primary factory-facing quality leader across Vita Coco’s APAC manufacturing and co-manufacturing network. The role drives consistent quality and food-safety performance, reinforces Vita Coco Minimum Mandates and Policies, and ensures that deviations, non-conformances, complaints and emerging risks lead to timely containment, evidence-based investigation and effective corrective and preventive action (CAPA).

The role combines hands-on factory engagement, disciplined governance, quality-data analysis and continuous improvement with leadership of the APAC Quality Engineers. It strengthens factory accountability and capability while supporting the broader RUN, GROW and INNOVATE objectives of Technical Services.

Responsibilities

1. Factory-Facing Quality Leadership and Governance

Serve as the primary quality partner for assigned APAC factories and co-manufacturers, building effective relationships with factory management, Quality, Production, Engineering and Laboratory teams.

Establish a routine governance rhythm covering quality performance, risk assessment, action tracking and escalation.

Drive consistent implementation of Vita Coco Minimum Mandates, Policies, quality standards and manufacturing-network ways of working.

Identify and escalate risks affecting food safety, compliance, product integrity, supply continuity, customer requirements or consumer satisfaction.

Conduct regular factory engagement and site visits to assess practices, process controls, quality-system effectiveness and improvement opportunities.

Challenge gaps constructively and ensure corrective measures are practical, risk-based and sustainable.

2. Non-Conformance, Root Cause Analysis and CAPA

Lead or facilitate investigations into significant deviations, non-conformances, complaints, process failures, product-integrity concerns and recurring issues.

Ensure timely containment and risk assessment of affected products, processes and potentially impacted production lots in coordination with authorised Quality decision-makers.

Drive structured root-cause analysis using appropriate tools such as 5 Whys, fishbone, fault-tree analysis, process mapping, SPC, trend analysis and comparative production data.

Challenge investigations to differentiate immediate causes, contributing factors and verified systemic root causes.

Review CAPA plans for clear root-cause linkage, accountable owners, realistic timelines and measurable effectiveness criteria.

Maintain CAPA governance covering progress, overdue actions, recurring issues and systemic risks; escalate weak evidence, delay or ineffective action.

Verify implementation and sustained effectiveness through objective evidence before recommending closure.

Share significant incidents, root causes, lessons learned and preventive controls across factories.

3. SOPs, Standards and Factory Quality-System Capability

Support factories to develop, improve and implement practical SOPs, quality-control plans, inspection methods, testing protocols, escalation procedures and records.

Confirm procedures reflect actual factory practice, define responsibilities and critical controls, and are supported by training and implementation evidence.

Assess quality-system effectiveness and close gaps between documented procedures and operational execution.

Strengthen preventive controls including process monitoring, equipment verification, calibration, inspection, laboratory controls and traceability.

Translate recurring network gaps into standard approaches, templates, guidance and training.

Support compliance with applicable HACCP, BRCGS, FSSC 22000 and US FDA FSMA requirements, and preparation for internal, customer, certification and regulatory audits.

4. Factory Performance, Risk and Continuous Improvement

Analyse production, laboratory, complaint, non-conformance, audit, process-monitoring and product-evaluation data to identify trends and priorities.

Maintain meaningful KPIs covering non-conformance trends, CAPA ageing and effectiveness, complaint recurrence, audit closure, process-control compliance and product quality.

Apply risk-based prioritisation and conduct routine performance reviews with factory teams.

Partner with Operations, Engineering, Laboratory, Continuous Improvement and factory teams to improve process capability, sterility assurance, shelf life, manufacturing consistency and right-first-time performance.

Support improvement of aseptic processing, filling operations, packaging integrity, filling-volume compliance, calibration, sanitation and process controls.

Investigate physicochemical, microbiological and sensory trends; use SPC and process-capability analysis to improve consistency and reduce recurring losses.

Support factory qualification, process verification, production trials and manufacturing changes within RUN responsibilities and in collaboration with GROW and INNOVATE.

Provide concise management reporting on performance, critical risks, improvement actions and unresolved issues.

5. Team Leadership and Execution

Lead, coach and develop the APAC Quality Engineers, translating Technical Services priorities into objectives, work plans, KPIs and development goals.

Prioritise factory support, investigations, audits, analysis, qualification and CAPA verification according to risk, business impact and available resources.

Provide technical oversight for complex investigations and review the quality and timeliness of reports, assessments, communications and closure evidence.

Build team capability in aseptic manufacturing, food-safety systems, risk assessment, root-cause analysis, data interpretation and factory governance.

Develop independence, technical judgement, constructive challenge and disciplined follow-through; address capability gaps through coaching, training, mentoring and factory exposure.

Maintain continuity of quality support during critical manufacturing events and foster a collaborative, accountable improvement culture.

6. Contribution to Technical Services - RUN, GROW and INNOVATE

Provide factory insights, recurring issues, constraints, systemic risks and improvement opportunities to the RUN Director and wider Technical Services organisation.

Capture lessons from incidents, investigations, audits and improvement work for network-wide learning.

Provide quality input to new factories, lines, products, packaging, technologies, qualification, validation and scale-up activities.

Support structured handovers into RUN by confirming requirements, SOPs, controls, monitoring, training and outstanding risks are documented and understood.

Assess risks from manufacturing changes and confirm operational readiness before transition to routine production.

Document improvement outcomes and measurable benefits that demonstrate Technical Services value.

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