Cindy Darnell
Cindy Darnell is a Director of Operational Excellence for the Americas Region with over 25 years of experience in leadership, business operations, and continuous improvement. She currently works at Element Materials Technology, where she supports multiple sites across the region by leading Lean Six Sigma initiatives, facilitating Kaizen events, and delivering training on operational excellence tools. Cindy is a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt, Maxwell Certified Leadership Trainer, Speaker, and Coach, as well as a Maxwell DISC Certified Consultant, with a strong passion for helping teams improve efficiency, quality, and collaboration.
Throughout her career, Cindy has built a reputation as a servant leader dedicated to developing people and strengthening organizational culture. She began her journey in executive support and customer service, where she progressed through leadership roles over 15 years before transitioning into operations and Lean-focused work. In her current role, she designs and leads improvement projects that reduce waste, shorten turnaround times, and enhance customer experience—most notably helping reduce testing turnaround time from 14 days to 2 days while sustaining long-term improvements across teams.
Beyond her corporate work, Cindy is deeply committed to leadership development and community impact. She is actively involved in coaching, speaking, and training through Maxwell Leadership programs and her work as a facilitator and consultant. Her philosophy centers on connection, accountability, and personal growth, and she is known for creating spaces where individuals and teams can better understand themselves and each other. Cindy’s approach blends operational excellence with human-centered leadership, helping organizations not only improve processes but also build stronger, more engaged workplaces.
• Certified Leadership Trainer, Speaker, and Coach
• Maxwell DISC Certified Behavioral Analysis Consultant
• RPA Citizen Developer
• Lean Six Sigma Green Belt Certification
• Customer Support Hero
• Indiana Wesleyan University- B.S.
• Ivy Tech Community College
• Rotary Club
• Schools
• Food pantries
What do you attribute your success to?
I would say there are a couple of things. I definitely learned that if I wanted to grow with a company, I had to kind of take control and be in charge of my path, forging my path, and being open to trying something new. When I first started, I of course did not envision I would end up in operational excellence and lean, but not shying away from those opportunities when they presented themselves and believing in myself that I could take on these new roles, even though they were maybe outside of my comfort zone. And of course, having great leaders and mentors along the way. I'm a big fan of personality assessments and I'm a DISC consultant as well. I did one of those several years ago and just really learned a lot about myself, and the strengths that I have and weak areas, and that was really enlightening to me to kind of help me make sure I was focusing on growing in the right ways and leading my team also at that time.
What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Be willing to step into new and unfamiliar roles, take ownership of your career path, actively seek out mentors who will challenge and support you, invest in continuous learning (especially in Lean methods, leadership, and communication skills), and stay open to opportunities that may look different from what you originally planned.
What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I would say this is probably true with a lot of people in the lean or continuous improvement world - getting buy-in from everyone on the team that it is important and that there is return on investment in using lean tools to improve our business. It's very easy for me when I go into a site and the general manager is fully on board, they understand the tools, they want to bring this in. Versus a general manager that doesn't really understand lean, or doesn't have experience in it, or doesn't really see value in it. That's a lot more challenging to get those folks on board. I still think it comes down to just connecting with that individual and indicating clearly what the outcome will be, what the return on investment will be, and then it's on me to kind of show it, right? Put what my words are saying. And just getting people's time dedicated to it, because there's always going to be focus on delivering for the customer and getting the work that's in front of them out the door, but there has to be some time set aside to work on improvement as well, and that's a challenge.
What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I definitely have a servant leadership philosophy personally. I really think that connecting and communication is so important, particularly when you're managing groups that are maybe not all in the same location, finding ways to engage with them. We are a very innovative company, so being open to automation, AI, robotics, just being open to trying new things, and we are very big fans of piloting something and learning from just trying things out. If that doesn't work, that's okay - at least we gave it a try. Being just willing to listen to ideas of the colleagues that we work with and seeing those actions through, even if they aren't a success, just being willing to give things a try really resonates with employees because they feel like their ideas are heard, and that's so important.