Chief-of-staff to regional chair (CHRO calibre) — Luxury · Canada

Position overview

Gladwin International Leadership Advisors is representing a confidential organisation in Luxury Goods & Services on a senior CHRO leadership mandate anchored in Canada. The remit explicitly spans Continental Europe, China, Africa.

This is a strategic transformation mandate at CXO level — equal parts operating leadership, change orchestration, and investor / board narrative ownership.

This is a role for someone who has already led through at least one major inflection: restructuring, M&A, regulatory reset, or category shift.

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Context you will inherit

• Market & sector: Luxury retail real estate leadership — the right leaders for flagship stores in India's top luxury malls and emerging high-street precincts need to understand both retail P&L and experience design
• Geographic spine: Primary hub Canada with explicit corridor responsibility across Continental Europe, China, Africa.
• Organisation stage: Growth agenda collides with legacy cost base; productivity and automation are board-level topics, not staff functions.
• Stakeholders: Owners may include PE operating partners, a promoter family office, or public-market investors — each with different tempo and KPIs.
• Secondary lens: Clienteling culture — building CRM-led, relationship-driven selling organisations where store managers and advisors know clients by family, occasion, and preference rather than transaction — a capability most Indian retail leaders have not been trained in

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The mandate (12–24 month arc)

1. Transformation people plan: Align organisation design to strategy — spans, layers, and decision rights.
2. Change leadership: Equip executives to lead through restructuring, automation, or geographic shifts without burning trust.
3. Diversity & inclusion: Move from programmes to measurable outcomes in hiring, promotion, and succession data.
4. Industrial relations / employee relations: Stabilise hotspots; ensure policies match local law and company values.
5. Learning: Invest in leadership curricula tied to business priorities — not generic catalogues.
6. HR analytics: Give the CEO and CFO a clear view of workforce cost, productivity, and risk signals.

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Responsibilities (representative)

• Upgrade manager capability — especially feedback, coaching, and performance management at scale.
• Simplify rewards; reduce exception culture that undermines internal equity.
• Own employee listening and action planning tied to retention drivers.
• Partner with legal on investigations, policies, and regulatory people topics.
• Build HR analytics that support board and audit committee oversight.

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Leadership profile

• Judgment: High signal-to-noise under pressure; ethical clarity; willingness to halt initiatives that break risk appetite.
• Education: Strong undergraduate grounding; MBA / advanced degree / professional qualification common at this level.
• Business partnership: HR seen as a strategic function, not only policy and service delivery.
• Communication: Executive presence in English; additional languages valued where market-relevant.
• Geographic muscle: Comfort operating from Canada with regular engagement across Continental Europe, China.

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Team & culture

The organisation runs hot — ambitious targets and thin buffers. You need to channel energy into sustainable rhythms: predictable planning, honest risk surfacing, and recovery time for teams after major pushes.

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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

Travel weighted to priority markets and quarterly global or regional forums; flexibility for crisis windows.

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Compensation

Competitive CHRO compensation for Luxury Goods & Services 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: luxury-goods-services · CHRO · Canada · Gladwin International Leadership Advisors