Executive Search Success Story: Building an Automation and Engineering Leadership Team to Robotize Processing and Packaging at a Poultry and Protein Processor

How JRG Partners executed a confidential, multi-role North American executive search strategy that equipped a large poultry and further-processed protein company with the operations, automation, plant engineering, controls, and reliability leadership required to deploy robotic deboning, cutting, and packaging across eighteen plants, offsetting chronic labor shortages and improving yield, safety, and throughput.

The Challenge

A protein processor faced labor shortages that left lines understaffed, turnover above 70% in processing roles, rising injury rates on repetitive cutting tasks, and yield losses from inconsistent manual deboning. The board approved a $400M automation program covering robotic deboning and cutting, vision-guided trimming, automated packaging, and palletizing, but the company’s engineering function had been built around conventional line equipment, its controls organization could not support advanced robotics, and maintenance teams were not equipped to keep automated systems running in wet, high-sanitation environments. Executive leadership identified several critical vulnerabilities threatening the program:

• Processing lines understaffed with turnover above 70% and rising injury rates
• Yield losses from manual deboning and trimming variability
• A $400M automation program with no robotics or advanced automation engineering leadership
• Controls capability unable to support vision-guided robotics and integrated line control
• Maintenance organizations not equipped for robotic systems in washdown environments
• No experience managing automation deployments across eighteen plants simultaneously

Recognizing that the program required a leadership team built for food robotics at scale, the Chief Executive Officer and board engaged JRG Partners to recruit a Chief Operating Officer, Vice President of Automation & Robotics Engineering, Vice President of Plant Engineering & Capital Projects, Vice President of Controls & Industrial Software, and Vice President of Maintenance & Reliability. The company required an executive search partner with deep food automation expertise and access to leaders who had robotized protein processing.

Why They Chose JRG Partners

Food & Beverage Automation & Robotics Focus

JRG Partners maintains a dedicated practice serving food and beverage manufacturers deploying automation and robotics, with deep recruiting expertise across automation engineering, plant engineering, controls, reliability, and operations leadership. This focus ensured an immediate understanding of robotics in washdown and food safety environments, capital program execution, and the leadership profiles that deliver automation at scale.

Protein Automation Experience

Our firm has extensive experience recruiting engineering and operations leaders who have deployed robotic deboning, cutting, and packaging in poultry, meat, and seafood processing.

Multi-Role Execution

Our team specializes in running coordinated operations, automation, engineering, controls, and reliability searches in parallel, ensuring leaders are selected as a complementary unit aligned to a single capital program.

Our Executive Search Strategy

Phase 1 — Program Alignment

Our consultants partnered directly with the Chief Executive Officer, board, and plant leadership to review labor and injury data, yield analysis, the automation program scope, engineering capability, and plant conditions, defining five executive profiles aligned with the program.

Phase 2 — Talent Identification & Mapping

Our research team performed an extensive talent mapping initiative targeting operations, automation, plant engineering, controls, and reliability executives at protein and food processors, food automation integrators, and packaging and processing equipment companies who had led documented food robotics deployments. Over 440 executives were systematically assessed across these sectors.

Phase 3 — Candidate Engagement

Priority during outreach was given to leaders with a documented history of deploying robotic processing and packaging across multiple food plants, delivering large automation capital programs, building controls and industrial software capability for vision-guided robotics, establishing reliability programs for automated washdown equipment, and improving yield, safety, and throughput through automation. Only candidates meeting these strict performance baselines advanced.

Phase 4 — Selection Process

Finalists presented automation program plans to the Chief Executive Officer and board, completed structured leadership assessments, and underwent reference verification focused on quantified automation, yield, safety, and labor outcomes.

Key Outcomes

• 440+ food processing, automation, and engineering executive profiles mapped across North America.
• Successfully placed a synchronized leadership tier spanning operations, automation, plant engineering, controls, and reliability within seven months.
• Deployed robotics across fourteen plants within three years with deboning yield up 2.8 points.
• Reduced commissioning time by 35% through in-house controls capability.
• Achieved automated line uptime above 96% with 300 trained robotics technicians.
• Cut labor hours per pound 30%, injuries on automated lines 60%, and raised throughput 18%.