Position Summary

The Director, Cultivation Operations provides leadership and oversight for day-to-day operations within a large-scale, controlled-environment cannabis cultivation facility. This role is responsible for delivering safe, compliant, consistent, and high-quality cultivation outcomes while achieving targets related to yield, quality, throughput, labour efficiency, plant health, and overall team performance.

The Director leads cultivation operations from propagation through drying, ensuring optimal plant health, high yields, efficient product flow, and exceptional product quality. This position ensures strict adherence to standard operating procedures, Health Canada regulations, and applicable quality standards, including EU-GMP requirements.

The role works closely with Plant Sciences/R&D, Quality, Planning, Maintenance, Processing, Supply Chain, and other cross-functional partners to drive strong execution, continuous improvement, and alignment with organizational priorities.

Who you are

The ideal candidate is a proactive, data-driven operations leader with strong problem-solving skills and excellent organizational capabilities. They bring proven experience building and leading accountable, high-performing teams within complex, regulated production environments. Experience in cannabis cultivation is considered an asset; however, candidates from controlled-environment agriculture, greenhouse production, floriculture, or similar regulated production settings will also be considered.

This individual demonstrates strong interpersonal skills, sound judgment, and a high sense of urgency. They have a proven ability to coach managers and staff, strengthen leadership capability, and foster a culture of safety, accountability, quality, and continuous improvement.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead operations from propagation through drying and execute the cultivation and post-harvest strategy, ensuring timely completion of tasks, conformance to production plans, and accurate completion of required documentation;
• Ensure departmental and organizational KPIs are met, including safety, quality, yield, throughput, labour efficiency, plant health, compliance, and cost control;
• Coach, develop, and provide direction to cultivation managers, supervisors, and staff to build a high-performing, accountable, and engaged team;
• Ensure compliance with Health Canada requirements, internal SOPs, CUMCS, EU-GMP, and other applicable quality and regulatory standards;
• Collaborate with Plant Sciences/R&D to execute cultivation strategies, new processes, new cultivars, trials, and continuous improvement initiatives;
• Monitor cultivation and drying performance, plant health, room performance, labour utilization, production efficiency, product flow, material waste, and other key operational drivers;
• Identify performance gaps, production issues, and root causes, and implement corrective actions in collaboration with cross-functional partners;
• Drive consistency across teams, shifts, materials, procedures, documentation, work instructions, and staff training;
• Champion a culture of safety, accountability, quality, urgency, problem-solving, and continuous improvement;

Qualifications:

• Post-secondary education in horticulture, plant science, agriculture, operations management or a related field, or an equivalent combination of relevant education and experience is required;
• Minimum 7+ years of progressive leadership experience in cultivation, controlled-environment agriculture, greenhouse production, food manufacturing, pharmaceutical production, CPG, or another regulated production environment;
• Minimum 5+ years of experience leading managers, supervisors, or large production teams in a complex operations setting;
• Commercial cannabis cultivation experience at scale is considered an asset;
• Experience with GPP, CUMCS, EU-GMP, GACP, or comparable quality and compliance standards is considered an asset;
• Strong understanding of operational execution, production planning, labour planning, KPI management, root-cause problem solving, and continuous improvement;
• Ability to obtain and maintain required Health Canada security clearance under applicable cannabis regulations;
• Strong analytical, communication, coaching, conflict resolution, and change management skills;
• Proven ability to build and develop high-performing teams while creating clear accountability and a positive, professional work environment;
• Proficiency in MS Office applications and business tools such as Power BI, ERP/MRP systems, or production dashboards;