Multi-geography CHRO — Professional Services · anchored Continental Europe

Position overview

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

This is a multi-geography leadership role requiring orchestration across time zones, matrix stakeholders, and often dual-reporting into global and regional lines.

You will be measured on outcomes that compound: talent depth, customer trust, and a balance sheet that can flex through cycles.

Context you will inherit

• Market & sector: Practice building leadership — finding partners who can build new service lines or geographic practices from scratch, requiring entrepreneurial instinct within a structured partnership environment
• Geographic spine: Primary hub Continental Europe with explicit corridor responsibility across Canada, Singapore, Africa.
• 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: Retention of high performers — professional services firms face constant attrition of their best people to corporate roles; building compelling career propositions is a leadership challenge

The mandate (12–24 month arc)

1. Culture diagnostics: Replace annual surveys with pulse and qualitative insight tied to business outcomes.
2. Role clarity: Clean up overlapping mandates between functions — reduce “everyone owns everything” ambiguity.
3. Internal mobility: Make moves across units easier; reduce hoarding of high potentials inside silos.
4. Alumni & boomerang: Professional offboarding and selective re-hire paths where brand and IP protection allow.
5. HR tech debt: Rationalise HRIS / ATS stack; improve self-service so HRBP time shifts to strategic work.
6. Board people reporting: Succession, diversity, and conduct themes with substance — not compliance theatre.

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.

Leadership profile

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

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.

Success measures (examples)

• Growth quality: Mix of recurring revenue, new logos, and cross-sell — not volume for its own sake.
• Productivity: Unit cost, automation savings, or throughput improvements with audited baselines.
• Customer: NPS / CSAT where tracked; contract renewals; reference-ability in strategic accounts.
• Franchise: Clean compliance record; reputation stability in industry and government forums.

First 90 days (orientation arc)

• Days 1–30: Listening tour — customers, regulators (as appropriate), top team 1:1s, and unfiltered view of numbers; pause major reorganisation.
• Days 30–60: Publish a short memo on priorities, non-goals, and decision rights; align executive committee on three enterprise bets.
• Days 60–90: Lock operating cadence; fill or upgrade one to two critical seats; deliver one visible win (customer, cost, or culture).
• Commission a pragmatic view of data, cyber, and automation posture; sponsor one bounded pilot with ROI hypothesis.
• Establish escalation discipline with matrix partners — fewer meetings, clearer decision logs.
• Clarify RACI for cross-border deals, staffing, and pricing exceptions.

Stakeholder map (illustrative)

• Internal: CEO or regional president, CFO, risk / legal, CHRO, CIO or CDO, business GMs, internal audit.
• External: Strategic accounts, channel partners, industry associations, regulators (where material).
• Owners: PE operating partners, promoter office, or public investors — pace and clarity matter as much as vision.

Travel & mobility

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

Compensation

Market-aligned CHRO remuneration in Professional Services with performance linkage; sign-on and relocation considered for exceptional fits.

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 Professional Services and Continental Europe. For similar active mandates, browse open roles or submit a general profile through executive search inquiry.

Reference: professional-services · CHRO · Continental Europe · Gladwin International Leadership Advisors