Quality Program Lead- Life Sciences

As a trusted global transformation partner, Welocalize accelerates the global business journey by enabling brands and companies to reach, engage, and grow international audiences. Welocalize delivers multilingual content transformation services in translation, localization, and adaptation for over 250 languages with a growing network of over 400,000 in-country linguistic resources. Driving innovation in language services, Welocalize delivers high-quality training data transformation solutions for NLP-enabled machine learning by blending technology and human intelligence to collect, annotate, and evaluate all content types. Our team works across locations in North America, Europe, and Asia serving our global clients in the markets that matter to them. www.welocalize.com

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Job Reference: #LI-JC1

Overview

The Quality Program Lead is responsible for continuously improving customer quality experience and building close and trustworthy relationships with Welocalize customers. The Quality Program Lead is responsible for the quality strategy for the Squad based on the client requirements. The Quality Program Lead may guide a team of quality representatives to ensure fulfilment of those requirements. The quality strategy should always be based on the Welocalize Four Principles, Customer Obsession, Relentless Innovation, Winning Together and Commitment to Excellence. The Quality Program Lead leads the quality discussions with the customer in terms of overall quality strategy and in the planning of new quality initiatives. This role is accountable for achieving assigned Quality Objectives and Key Results (OKRs).

Main Duties:
• Strategic Planning & OKRs: Define quarterly Squad Quality OKRs in alignment with company goals; design and lead the implementation of client-specific quality account strategies.
• Performance Oversight: Monitor Squad KPIs and quality metrics, overseeing the execution of process improvements to drive customer satisfaction, efficiency, and deliverable quality.
• Escalation & Issue Management: Act as the primary escalation point for clients and team members; lead root cause analysis (RCA), CAPA initiatives, and resolve complex issues when standard procedures fail.
• Supplier Governance: Lead supplier performance management and continuous improvement efforts, tracking metrics such as OTD, task acceptance, and linguistic accuracy.
• Client Engagement: Support or lead executive-level quality conversations, anticipating client needs and presenting regular data-driven quality reports.
• Operational Leadership: Oversee the design of quality frameworks and account plans while maintaining all relevant client-facing quality documentation.
• Team Development & Training: Manage the onboarding and training of new quality team members on Squad-specific workflows and customer requirements.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with Language Services and Engagement Managers to forecast capacity needs, align supplier resources, and initiate Quality Improvement Plans (QIPs).
• Growth Support: Assist the Squad Group Lead with quality-related requirements for RFPs and new business development opportunities.

Experience:
• Senior Industry Leadership: Extensive experience managing quality for large-scale accounts within fast-paced, client-centric localization or translation environments. Experience in CRO-Pharma or Medical Devices would be a plus.
• Team Leadership: Proven ability to lead, mentor, and develop diverse local and remote teams, fostering a culture of knowledge sharing and collaboration.
• Quality Strategy & Governance: Deep expertise in quality management principles and the ability to design and execute impactful quality planning strategies.
• Technical Mastery: Advanced knowledge of Translation Management Systems (TMS), TM tools, and MTPE workflows, with a sustained interest in emerging industry technologies.
• Strategic Problem Solving: Strong data literacy with the capacity to leverage analytics for complex problem-solving, risk mitigation, and creative process improvement.
• Expert Communication: Exceptional verbal and written English skills, with a demonstrated ability to influence stakeholders and present structured arguments to diverse audiences.
• Operational Excellence: Highly organized with the ability to prioritize projects based on business needs; experience with Agile or Lean Six Sigma methodologies is an advantage.
• Education: Master’s degree or equivalent professional experience.

Key Competencies :
• Ability to think strategically and articulate ideas and plans with the professional maturity to participate at senior management level.
• Can develop a quality program plan and sequence of events.
• Can lead customer quality meetings and capture requirements and set success factors.
• Takes ownership for driving progress (weekly) and can make informed decisions.
• Can drive quality change on an existing program, across processes, roles and expectations.
• Shows good negotiation skills and situational awareness.
• Provides mentoring & coaching to quality squad team members.
• Requires customer centric approach and attitude.
• Encourages empowerment of the team.
• Is process driven and can change strategy as needed to meet customer needs.
• Exhibits empathetic leadership skills.
• Understands the importance of Objective & Key Results (OKRs) and is results orientated.
• Proactively develops clear solutions to complex problems.

Please note that only CVs in English will be considered