Division Director, Quality & Customer Experience

Requisition Number: 74888

The company built on breakthroughs.
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Corning is one of the world’s leading innovators in glass, ceramic, and materials science. From the depths of the ocean to the farthest reaches of space, our technologies push the boundaries of what’s possible.

How do we do this? With our people. They break through limitations and expectations – not once in a career, but every day. They help move our company, and the world, forward.

At Corning, there are endless possibilities for making an impact. You can help connect the unconnected, drive the future of automobiles, transform at-home entertainment, and ensure the delivery of lifesaving medicines. And so much more.

Come break through with us.

Corning’s businesses are ever-evolving to best serve our customers, industries, and consumers. Today, we accelerate and transform life sciences, mobile consumer electronics, optical communications, display, automotive, and solar markets. We are changing the world with:

• Trusted products that accelerate drug discovery, development, and delivery to save lives
• Damage-resistant cover glass to enhance the devices that keep us connected
• Optical fiber, wireless technologies, and connectivity solutions to carry information and ideas at the speed of light
• Precision glass for advanced displays to deliver richer experiences
• Auto glass and ceramics to drive cleaner, safer, and smarter transportation
• Solar polysilicon, wafers, and innovative photovoltaic modules, enabling low-cost solar energy solutions

Corning’s Advanced Optics Division is looking for a bold, strategic, and transformational leader to serve as Division Director, Quality & Customer Experience. This is a high-impact senior leadership role for a leader who thrives at the intersection of customer trust, operational excellence, and business growth.

Our Advanced Optics business serves some of the most demanding and innovation-driven markets in the world, including semiconductors, aerospace & defense, space systems, precision optics, and advanced photonics. Customers in these markets depend on Corning when performance matters, failure is not an option, and long-term partnership is critical.

In this role, you will define and lead the strategy that ensures customers experience Corning at its best — from early engagement and product development through manufacturing, delivery, field performance, and issue resolution. You will shape how quality and customer experience operate across the division, building the systems, talent, and cross-functional alignment needed to support future growth.

This is not a traditional quality leadership role. It is an opportunity to transform a critical business capability, influence senior leaders across the division, and create competitive advantages through exceptional execution and customer confidence.

The Opportunity:

As Division Director, Quality & Customer Experience, you will lead a global organization responsible for strengthening product quality, elevating customer experience, and embedding a proactive, prevention-based mindset across the business.

You will be empowered to:

• Set the vision and strategy for division-wide Quality and Customer Experience
• Lead transformational change across systems, processes, and operating rhythms
• Help champion the voice of the customer across commercial, engineering, operations, and supply chain teams
• Build scalable capabilities that improve performance, protect margins, and enable growth
• Enable excellent customer outcomes through quality systems, processes, governance and coordinated issue resolution
• Raise the strategic impact of Quality and CX from functional excellence to business leadership

Success in this role will require both executive-level leadership and deep operational credibility. You must be able to challenge legacy approaches, align cross-functional teams, and create disciplined execution in a complex, highly technical manufacturing environment.

What You’ll Lead:

• A global Quality organization and Customer Experience team
• The division’s Quality Management System, governance model, and improvement roadmap
• Cross-functional efforts to embed customer requirements into NPI, design reviews, launch readiness, production, and field support
• Strategic initiatives that improve quality performance, reduce risk, and strengthen customer trust
• Organizational capability-building across quality systems, problem-solving, and customer-facing execution

Reporting to the Director, Operations and Supply Chain, this leader will play a central role in shaping the future performance and reputation of the Advanced Optics Division.

What You Will Do:

Strategic Leadership:

• Develop and execute a multi-year Quality & Customer Experience strategy aligned to division growth objectives
• Establish clear priorities, operating mechanisms, and performance metrics tied to business outcomes
• Position Quality and CX as strategic enablers of growth, customer retention, and profitability

Business and Customer Impact:

• Drive alignment across the full customer lifecycle, ensuring customer requirements are translated effectively from opportunity development through production and field performance
• Partner closely with Sales, Engineering, Operations, and Supply Chain to improve responsiveness, predictability, and customer confidence
• Support executive-level customer escalations with urgency, transparency, and accountability
• Serve as a strong internal advocate for the customer while balancing business, technical, and operational realities

Operational Excellence:

• Drive measurable improvements in quality performance, including yield, scrap, rework, nonconformance reduction, and root-cause effectiveness
• Strengthening prevention-focused quality systems and robust problem-solving disciplines
• Improve supplier and extended enterprise performance to reduce customer-impacting risk
• Ensure the division has the right management systems, governance, and operating cadence to sustain results

Transformation and Capability Building:

• Challenge legacy processes, handoffs, and structures that limit speed, consistency, or customer trust
• Redesign how Quality and Customer Experience operate where needed — not simply optimize around existing constraints
• Build a high-performing organization with strong leadership, accountability, technical depth, and influence
• Foster adoption of digital, data, and advanced analytics tools that improve quality insights and customer outcomes

What Success Looks Like:

In your first 12–18 months, you will have made a visible and measurable impact on the division’s performance and customer experience. Success will include:

• Meaningful improvements in first-pass yield, scrap, rework, and overall quality performance, especially for strategic and high-reliability customers
• Reduced frequency and severity of customer escalations, with faster resolution and stronger root-cause closure
• Customer, regulatory, and risk requirements embedded earlier and more effectively into NPI, design, and launch processes
• Stronger transparency and shared accountability across commercial and operations teams for customer quality, delivery, and risk performance
• A Quality & Customer Experience organization recognized as a trusted business partner and driver of growth — not simply a compliance function
• Clear linkage between quality/customer outcomes and business performance, including COPQ reduction, revenue protection, and improved customer retention

Who You Are:

You are a senior leader who combines strategic vision, operational rigor, and customer-first leadership. You know how to lead in technically demanding environments, build credibility quickly, and drive transformation that delivers measurable business value.

Preferred experience includes:

• Bachelor's degree in chemical engineering, mechanical engineering or related field
• 10+ years of leadership experience in Quality, Customer Experience, Manufacturing, Operations, or related functions
• Success leading in advanced manufacturing, engineered products, highly technical B2B, or regulated environments
• A track record of driving cross-functional transformation and delivering sustained improvements in quality, customer satisfaction, and operational performance
• Experience serving customers in industries such as semiconductor, aerospace, defense, space, medical, precision optics, or other high-reliability markets
• Strong executive presence and the ability to influence across functions, levels, and geographies
• Technical credibility with engineering and manufacturing teams in complex production environments
• Financial acumen, with the ability to connect quality and CX initiatives to margin, growth, and risk reduction
• Familiarity with digital, data, analytics, or AI-enabled tools that strengthen quality systems or customer experience is a plus

You likely bring these leadership traits:

• Courage to challenge “the way we’ve always done it”
• A systems mindset and bias toward prevention over containment
• Strong business judgment and decision-making in ambiguous, high-stakes environments
• A collaborative, high-accountability leadership style
• Passion for developing teams and building organizational capability
• Deep commitment to customer trust, execution excellence, and continuous improvement

Location/ Hours:

• Open to work remote but must report to Corning, NY

This position does not support immigration sponsorship.

The range for this position is $184,622.00 - $253,855.00 assuming full time status. Starting pay for the successful applicant is dependent on a variety of job-related factors, including but not limited to geographic location, market demands, experience, training, and education.

A job that shapes a life.

Corning offers you the total package.

Your well-being is our priority. Our compensation and benefits package supports your health and wellness, financial aspirations, and career from day one.

• Company-wide bonuses and long-term incentives align with key business results and ensure you are rewarded when the company performs well. When Corning wins, we all win.
• As part of our commitment to your financial well-being, we provide a 100% company-paid pension benefit with fixed contributions that grow throughout your career. Combined with matching contributions to your 401(k) savings plan, Corning’s total contributions to your retirement accounts can reach between 7% and 12% of your pay, depending on your age and years of service.
• Our health and well-being benefits include medical, dental, vision, paid parental leave, family building support, fitness, company-paid life insurance, disability, disease management programs, paid time off, and an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) to support you and your family.
• Getting paid for our work is important, but feeling appreciated and recognized for those contributions motivates us much more. That’s why Corning offers a recognition program to celebrate successes and reward colleagues who make exceptional contributions.

Your well-being is our priority. Our compensation and benefits package supports your health and wellness, financial aspirations, and career from day one.

• Company-wide bonuses and long-term incentives align with key business results and ensure you are rewarded when the company performs well. When Corning wins, we all win.
• As part of our commitment to your financial well-being, Corning provides company matching contributions to your 401(k) savings plan of up to 4% of pay when you contribute at least 6% of pay.
• Our health and well-being benefits include medical, dental, vision, paid parental leave, family building support, fitness, company-paid life insurance, disability, disease management programs, paid time off, and an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) to support you and your family.