Head of Consumer & Retail — China (CEO-level mandate)

Position overview

Gladwin International Leadership Advisors is representing a confidential organisation in Consumer, Retail & FMCG on a senior CEO leadership mandate anchored in China. The remit explicitly spans Malaysia, Canada, USA.

This is a sector or practice-head mandate combining deep domain credibility with commercial ownership of a vertical P&L or global practice line.

The role suits an operator who treats integration, culture, and capital allocation as one system — not three separate programmes.

Context you will inherit

• Market & sector: Finding leaders who can balance brand equity building (long-term) with performance marketing ROI (short-term) — the most common tension in modern FMCG leadership
• Geographic spine: Primary hub China with explicit corridor responsibility across Malaysia, Canada, USA.
• Organisation stage: Portfolio under review: non-core assets, JVs, and country footprints are actively questioned each planning cycle.
• Stakeholders: Stakeholders span board or regional executive committee, global functional heads, JV partners, and strategic account buyers.
• Secondary lens: Leading rural penetration strategies while simultaneously building premium urban propositions — requiring leaders who can manage both ends of the demand pyramid

The mandate (12–24 month arc)

1. Segment economics: Force transparency on true profitability by segment, channel, and geography — then reweight resources accordingly.
2. Pricing & mix: Sponsor commercial excellence — fewer one-off discounts, clearer walk-away rules, better contract discipline.
3. Innovation bets: Protect a thin portfolio of R&D or new ventures with stage-gates; kill duplicates across business units.
4. Operating resilience: Stress-test supply, cyber, and third-party dependencies; fund fixes before the next shock.
5. Leadership climate: Reduce meeting load; elevate written pre-reads and decision memos so the enterprise thinks more clearly.
6. Legacy clean-up: Retire zombie initiatives and committees that consume leadership attention without moving KPIs.

Responsibilities (representative)

• Own the integrated business plan and executive committee cadence for the region or platform.
• Decide capital allocation across segments; escalate only true enterprise trade-offs to the board or owners.
• Be the visible leader for culture, ethics, and conduct — especially when incentives pull the other way.
• Sponsor major customer and government relationships delegated to the role.
• Lead crisis management with accuracy, speed, and alignment to legal and communications.

Leadership profile

• Communication: Executive presence in English; additional languages valued where market-relevant.
• Judgment: High signal-to-noise under pressure; ethical clarity; willingness to halt initiatives that break risk appetite.
• Enterprise leadership: Track record owning P&L, top team, and board / owner interface in complex environments.
• Education: Strong undergraduate grounding; MBA / advanced degree / professional qualification common at this level.
• Geographic muscle: Comfort operating from China with regular engagement across Malaysia, Canada.

Team & culture

Silos are real. Your job is to design forums and incentives so product, technology, risk, and commercial leaders solve problems together instead of optimising local KPIs.

Success measures (examples)

• Financial: Revenue and margin vs. plan; cash conversion; capital efficiency.
• Strategic: Share in priority segments; customer retention in anchor accounts; milestone delivery on transformation.
• People: Engagement trends; regrettable attrition in critical roles; diversity of succession slate.
• Risk: Audit and regulatory outcomes; conduct events; operational resilience metrics.

First 90 days (orientation arc)

• Days 1–30: Shadow key customer journeys or operations — paper over slides where reality diverges.
• Days 30–60: Cut or pause low-value projects freeing capacity for strategic work.
• Days 60–90: Publish first integrated forecast or plan under your ownership — even if directional.
• Build trust with risk, legal, and audit through transparency — surprises erode licence to move fast.
• Pick one cultural signal (e.g. meeting hygiene, promotion criteria) and model it relentlessly.

Stakeholder map (illustrative)

• Internal: Matrix of global product houses and local P&L; tension is normal — your role is to broker trade-offs with data.
• External: Customers who influence reference deals; government or industry bodies in regulated sectors.
• Capital providers: Banks, sponsors, or minority investors — each needs a slightly different narrative on risk.

Travel & mobility

Role requires face-to-face presence in the primary hub with regular regional travel; remote-only not viable.

Compensation

Competitive CEO compensation for Consumer, Retail & FMCG leadership: cash, incentive, benefits, and potential equity or carry (case-dependent). Discussed with finalists only.

Application status

This mandate is no longer accepting new applications. The search progressed through Q4 2025 and closed for submissions in February 2026. We retain this posting for transparency on the type of leadership work we carry in Consumer, Retail & FMCG and China. For similar active mandates, browse open roles or submit a general profile through executive search inquiry.

Reference: consumer-retail-fmcg · CEO · China · Gladwin International Leadership Advisors