Operations leadership · Interim, GM & board
When execution cannot fail.
I’m Soheil Makdessi. I lead where the work happens — and answer for it, from the shop floor to the boardroom. Owners and executive teams bring me in when industrial operations must deliver, recover or scale, at the level the situation requires, from production manager to COO — or the whole factory as its general manager.
I’m Soheil Makdessi. I lead where the work happens — from production manager to COO or factory GM — and answer for it, shop floor to boardroom.
- Space & aerospace
- Electrical products
- Plastics & polymers
- Packaging
- Precision & high-volume assembly
- Manual production
The experience · if you want it
Walk the floor with me.
From the boardroom, past the wall with the problems, down to the machines and all the way out to the dock — the way I have lived it. Or keep scrolling: everything essential is right here on this page.
2 minutes · silent · you set the pace · back exactly where you were
Walk the floor with me →
Every level of operations
The title is not the point. The mandate is.
I have led at every level on this ladder — usually under a bigger title, with a wider scope — and I still take whichever one the situation calls for. That range is the offer: a leader who reads a P&L and a takt board with the same ease.
- Production ManagerShifts, takt, staffing and daily output
- Operations / Site ManagerCross-functional flow, from goods-in to dispatch
- Plant DirectorFull site P&L, people and performance
- COO / Operations DirectorEnd-to-end mandate across production, supply chain and engineering
- General Manager / Factory CEOThe whole unit as one business: P&L, customers, organisation, result
- Board & Expert CallsCertified board member; advisory for owners and investors
From the factory’s top seat down to production manager — too broad? It is the other way around.
Companies call when something has to change and the change needs seniority. Sometimes that means standing beside the CEO as a senior operator who steadies the operation. Sometimes it means taking the top seat itself, running a factory or unit as its general manager, with the whole business on my desk.
In a mid-size industrial company the top job is an operational job, and the distance from that seat to the floor is short. That is why one person can hold the whole range. I own the result from day one, whether the mandate stays interim or becomes permanent, and whether I move on once it holds or stay to run it. What I never become is the caretaker who only presides.
And operations move in every direction. I have run all four:
- UpRamp-up — from prototype to serial delivery
- DownRamp-down and redundancies, under control
- OutClosures, transfers and outsourcing
- InInsourcing that strengthens your own plant
One discipline runs under every level: operational excellence.
I led it as a group function across European operations before I ran it inside a full P&L. I have both built the system and answered for its results.
Documented results
The numbers hold up.
Every figure comes from a real mandate — several from years when the whole unit was mine to answer for, customers and P&L included. The people I answered to are on record about the work. You will find them under client testimonials.
Four closures and transfers, seen from four different seats: one I led end-to-end, one I decided from the board, one whose customer-critical line I protected from head office, and one that closed my own role.
The industries behind these numbers include aerospace, electrical products, plastics and packaging. Which company did what is something I walk through in a call, not on a website. Your situation gets the same discretion — it will never appear here either.
What I do
Four ways to engage me
Each engagement is built to restore control fast, strengthen execution and leave the organisation stronger than I found it.
01
Interim Operations Leadership
General manager or factory CEO of the whole unit, down through COO, operations director, head of operations, plant or production manager. The situation decides the level; the mandate matters more than the title.
Head of Operations to COO in four months, on results.
Read more
02
Turnaround & Stabilisation
When delivery, quality or cost has drifted. Diagnosis on the floor, a practical plan, and execution together with the team until performance holds.
90 → 97 % delivery, held for years.
Read more
03
Ramp-up, Transfer & Transformation
From prototype to serial production, factory moves, closures and consolidations. Unions, customers and timelines handled with respect and control.
60+ recruited mid-ramp · five sites, four countries.
Read more
04
Board Work & Expert Calls
Certified board member. Operating partner to owners and investors, board assignments and expert calls — an executive operator’s judgement on an industrial business.
Built the case, sat on the board that took the decision.
Read moreHow I work
Executive level. Close to the floor.
Results in operations are created where the work happens. So that is where I spend my time: with operators, technicians, supervisors and site management, and with the data they live with every day.
Diagnosis before prescription — at the pace the situation allows. An expert call gets hours, an acute delivery crisis gets a first week on the floor, a full mandate gets structured verification before any programme launches. The order never changes: I listen in three layers — the floor, the line managers, the executive team — and verify against the data before I prescribe.
“Even though Soheil operated several levels above my role, he consistently took the time to understand how processes worked on the shop-floor. By listening to operators and engineers, he drove improvements that optimized flow and processes in a very practical way.”
The industries
Same leadership. Different floors.
Space and aerospace components, high-volume electrical products, plastics and polymers, regulated pharma packaging. Automated serial lines, precision machining, manual production and assembly — the methods travel between floors, whatever runs on them.
Next step
Facing a situation like this?
A 15-minute call is usually enough to tell whether I can help. If I can’t, I will say so and point you somewhere better.
I reply within 24 hours.