We’re excited to have you meet Maayan Agmon. She’s an operational excellence leader at Orbotech, a KLA company, in Yavne, Israel. Maayan started her career as an administrator, but after three years, became interested in a new buzzword, “LEAN thinking.” It didn’t take long before she joined a workshop and fell in love with the concept.

The scope of her role as an operational excellence leader includes building the capabilities of teams and supporting groups who want to improve their performance. Maayan’s time is spent discussing problems, assessing workflow, determining what brings value or waste, and finding ways to increase productivity. She’s able to succeed in her role because of the highly motivated teams she works with.

“We encourage a culture of welcoming problems. The idea is to direct the spotlight on problems before they become crises and eventually to lower the amount of daily firefighting.”

Before taking on her current role, Orbotech encouraged Maayan to explore work outside of her responsibilities as an administrator. This gave her the opportunity to lead a project focused on small improvements every employee can make. Maayan’s proud to share that the project reached 98 percent employee involvement, “which is amazing,” she said.

Orbotech recognized her work and sent her to study the LEAN methodology further at a center in the United States. This is just one example of how KLA and its global organizations empower employees to learn new skills, giving us the opportunity to hire and promote from within.

If you liked reading about Maayan, you may also enjoy our previous opportunity ahead profile. Don’t forget to browse the KLA careers page to check out the opportunities ahead for you.