Lean Sigma Search™

Our Experience - Our Process - Our Global Perspective                       

With our team’s decades of operations experience, we are uniquely qualified to help our clients find, assess and recruit leadership talent. Our key principals have held senior-level director, VP and Lean Six Sigma positions in manufacturing, distribution and service-based Fortune 500 companies.

Our principals are Six Sigma Master Black Belt and Lean trained by globally recognized industry leading companies and have real-world, practical experience in their application.  As subject matter experts in the recruiting of Lean, Six Sigma and operations talent, our firm has been featured in leading industry trade magazines such as: Quality Progress, Quality Digest and IndustryWeek.

Timothy Noble     

Managing Principal & Partner

Timothy Noble is the managing principal of The Avery Point Group, a global executive search firm specializing in Lean, Six Sigma and operations talent for clients in Europe and North America. Mr. Noble has over 20 years of executive leadership experience in manufacturing, supply chain management, distribution, and executive search. Throughout his career he has been consistently promoted and has held senior level executive roles in major Fortune 500 companies like General Electric (GE) and The Stanley Works (SWK). He also has extensive experience in Lean Manufacturing and is a GE trained Six Sigma Master Black Belt.

Prior to his career move into executive search in 2004, Mr. Noble held the position of Director of Global Operations for Stanley-Bostitch, the second largest division of The Stanley Works. In that role, Noble had responsibility for 8 plants and over 1,900 employees with operations throughout North America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and Asia, supporting revenue in excess of $0.6 Billion. While at The Stanley Works, Noble was also responsible for the North American distribution operations of the business's Hand Tool and Hardware Group, supporting revenue in excess of $1.0 Billion. In each role at The Stanley Works, Noble delivered significant results, leveraging both Lean and Six Sigma across the business's manufacturing, distribution and supply chain operations.

Prior to joining The Stanley Works, Noble spent almost 14 years with General Electric and was consistently promoted into roles of increasing responsibility in supply chain management, plant operations, Six Sigma leadership and plant management (GE Executive Band). In his Six Sigma role, while at GE Lighting, Noble had responsibility for driving the North American Production Division's Six Sigma Stable Operations and Span initiatives across 26 plants in the US, Canada, and Mexico. In that role, Noble helped deliver significant capacity and throughput improvements in an environment of growing product demand and limited capital investment.

Mr. Noble holds a B.S. in Management / Industrial Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where he received the university's Salisbury Prize, an award only given to its most meritorious graduates. Upon graduation Noble was recruited into General Electric's highly selective Manufacturing Management Program (GE MMP), with assignments in GE Transportation and GE Government Electronics divisions.

Yvonne Hite   

Principal & Partner

Yvonne Hite is a principal and partner at The Avery Point Group, a global executive search firm specializing in Lean, Six Sigma, operations and finance talent for clients in Europe and North America. Ms. Hite has over 20 years of executive level leadership experience in manufacturing, financial services, Lean and Six Sigma. Throughout her career she has been consistently promoted and has held senior level executive roles in major Fortune 500 companies like General Electric (GE), Bank of America (BAC) and The Stanley Works (SWK). Ms. Hite is an ASQ Certified Quality Engineer, ASQ Certified Six Sigma Black Belt, and a Bank of America Certified Master Black Belt with extensive experience driving Lean and Six Sigma initiatives on a global scale.

Prior to her career move into executive search, Ms. Hite was a Senior Vice President with Bank of America where she led the Trust Services Operation for the Southeast with responsibility for over 8,000 client accounts and over $1.5 billion in assets under management (AUM). In that role, Ms. Hite drove record level performance improvements in both client delight and employee satisfaction. Prior to her role in Trust Services, Ms. Hite was a Senior Vice President and Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt with leadership responsibility for key project teams focused on sales and service process improvement for the bank’s Premier/Private Banking and Business Banking divisions.

Prior to being recruited back to Bank of America, Ms. Hite was the Director of Lean and Six Sigma for The Stanley Works where she was responsible for the entire corporation’s Lean and Six Sigma initiatives on a global scale, supporting revenue in excess of $3 Billion. Prior to her role at The Stanley Works, Ms. Hite was a Senior Vice President at Bank of America where she played a key role as a Master Black Belt in their Quality and Productivity Organization, driving the bank’s initial roll-out of Six Sigma.

Prior to joining Bank of America, Ms. Hite spent almost 15 years with General Electric (GE) where she was consistently promoted into roles of increasing responsibly in Quality, Plant Operations, and Plant Management. In her Plant Operations and Plant Management roles at GE Lighting, Ms. Hite managed some of the largest and most complex manufacturing sites in the business as one of its first female executive band manufacturing operations leaders.

Ms. Hite is fluent in Spanish and holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Florida and is a graduate of General Electric’s highly selective Manufacturing Management Program (GE MMP) with assignments in several GE Government Electronics division sites. She is also currently pursuing an M.S. in Engineering and Global Manufacturing Management from Clarkson University.