CFO — Global Automotive practice (based Malaysia)

Position overview

Gladwin International Leadership Advisors is representing a confidential organisation in Automotive & Transportation on a senior CFO leadership mandate anchored in Malaysia. The remit explicitly spans Continental Europe.

This is a country CEO / MD-class mandate with board- and headquarters-facing accountability for strategy execution, regulatory relationships, and brand in-market.

The organisation is looking for pattern recognition: someone who has seen similar complexity before and knows which levers matter first.

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Context you will inherit

• Market & sector: New mobility business models — subscription-based mobility, fleet electrification, and B2B mobility services require commercial leaders with non-traditional backgrounds
• Geographic spine: Primary hub Malaysia with explicit corridor responsibility across Continental Europe.
• Organisation stage: Recent leadership turnover created ambiguity on priorities; you will need to re-establish a crisp enterprise storyline.
• Stakeholders: Key interfaces include headquarters strategy, regional risk and legal, local regulators (where material), and anchor channel partners.
• Secondary lens: Speed of product development — reducing time-to-market from 48 months (traditional) to 18-24 months (EV-era expectation) requires new product leadership paradigms

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The mandate (12–24 month arc)

1. Cash culture: Make cash conversion a leadership KPI, not a finance-only metric; align incentives accordingly.
2. Pricing governance: Install guardrails on discounting and contract terms that erode lifetime margin.
3. Long-range planning: Replace static LRP with scenarios owners can stress — rates, FX, volume, and regulatory shocks.
4. Shared services chargeback: Improve transparency so business units see true cost-to-serve and behave accordingly.
5. Finance talent mix: Blend operators who have lived in P&Ls with technical specialists (tax, treasury, systems).
6. Ethics & conduct: Ensure incentives and targets do not invite shortcuts — partner with compliance on early warnings.

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Responsibilities (representative)

• Build finance business partnering that GMs trust as thought partners, not scorekeepers only.
• Sponsor digital finance roadmap — close, planning, and management reporting on modern platforms.
• Co-own working capital programme with COO and sales — DSO, DPO, inventory as appropriate.
• Lead finance integration on acquisitions with clear Day-1 / Day-100 milestones.
• Align incentive design with cash and return metrics, not only accounting profit.

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Leadership profile

• Judgment: High signal-to-noise under pressure; ethical clarity; willingness to halt initiatives that break risk appetite.
• Communication: Executive presence in English; additional languages valued where market-relevant.
• Education: Strong undergraduate grounding; MBA / advanced degree / professional qualification common at this level.
• Capital discipline: Examples of improving forecast accuracy, returns, or balance-sheet resilience in Automotive & Transportation.
• Geographic muscle: Comfort operating from Malaysia with regular engagement across Continental Europe.

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Team & culture

Inclusion and psychological safety are not separate programmes — they are prerequisites for honest debate on strategy and risk. Model curiosity, direct feedback, and consequences for conduct lapses.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Travel & mobility

Multi-hub rhythm — plan for weekly or bi-weekly cross-border travel during integration or transformation peaks.

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Compensation

Competitive CFO compensation for Automotive & Transportation leadership: cash, incentive, benefits, and potential equity or carry (case-dependent). Discussed with finalists only.

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Application process

Gladwin International is managing this search confidentially. Shortlisted candidates will engage in structured conversations with the firm’s partners before client introduction. Please apply through the careers portal with a concise note on why this geography, sector, and remit fit your trajectory.

We review every submission personally; unsolicited outreach to the end client is discouraged and may disqualify candidacy.

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Reference: automotive-transportation · CFO · Malaysia · Gladwin International Leadership Advisors