Sector practice head — Automotive (Continental Europe) · CTO

Position overview

Gladwin International Leadership Advisors is representing a confidential organisation in Automotive & Transportation on a senior CTO leadership mandate anchored in Continental Europe. The remit explicitly spans Africa, Canada, China.

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

Expect to partner closely with technology and risk leaders — the enterprise strategy is increasingly inseparable from data and resilience.

Context you will inherit

• Market & sector: Supply chain transformation — redesigning procurement and supply chain leadership for an EV world with new material requirements (lithium, cobalt, rare earths) and new supplier bases
• Geographic spine: Primary hub Continental Europe with explicit corridor responsibility across Africa, Canada, China.
• 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: Global expansion leadership — as Indian auto OEMs and component majors expand internationally through acquisitions and greenfield investments, they need leaders who can manage multicultural, multi-geography P&Ls

The mandate (12–24 month arc)

1. Reliability SLOs: Move from heroic uptime to engineered reliability — error budgets, blameless postmortems, funded remediation.
2. Developer experience: Tooling and environments that reduce cycle time for engineers; kill manual toil.
3. Legacy modernisation: Sequence rewrites vs. strangler patterns — avoid big-bang projects without milestones.
4. Open source & IP: Clear policy on dependencies, licences, and contribution risk.
5. Technical risk register: Quantify top architectural risks for the board in business terms.
6. Outsourcing mix: Right-size partner vs. insourced engineering — quality and speed, not only rate card.

Responsibilities (representative)

• Own technology strategy, architecture standards, and engineering culture.
• Partner with product on roadmap trade-offs — scope, quality, security, and debt.
• Lead vendor and cloud strategy; align contracts to usage and exit flexibility.
• Sponsor security and resilience programmes with clear executive metrics.
• Build engineering leadership bench and technical career ladders.

Leadership profile

• Technical depth: Credible with engineers on architecture, quality, security, and delivery mechanics.
• 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.
• Geographic muscle: Comfort operating from Continental Europe with regular engagement across Africa, Canada.

Team & culture

Expect some fatigue from prior change programmes. Your success depends on simpler priorities, fewer initiatives, and leaders who model accountability. Culture is how decisions get made when spreadsheets disagree — you set that tone.

Success measures (examples)

• Value creation: EBITDA / cash trajectory vs. owner or board case — especially under stress scenarios.
• Execution: On-time delivery of named transformation milestones; reduction in repeat incidents or audit findings.
• Leadership: External hires and internal promotions that stick; reduction in key-person concentration.
• Innovation: Launched offers or capabilities that move the needle on differentiation, not pilots that stall.

First 90 days (orientation arc)

• Days 1–30: Map cash, covenant, and customer concentration risks before announcing initiatives.
• Days 30–60: Align owners and board on a 12-month value story — financial and non-financial.
• Days 60–90: Launch two quick operational fixes that build credibility with frontline managers.
• Deep-dive on talent — who is load-bearing, who is blocking, where external hire is mandatory.
• Socialise a simple KPI tree so every function sees how their metrics roll up.

Stakeholder map (illustrative)

• Internal: Executive committee, functional peers, shared services leads, and programme PMOs.
• External: Key suppliers, technology partners, and joint-venture boards where applicable.
• Board / owners: Expect deep dives on risk, liquidity, talent, and transformation — slides light, substance heavy.

Travel & mobility

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

Compensation

Package aligned to CTO benchmarks in Automotive & Transportation — typically fixed, variable, benefits, and mobility where applicable. Structure detailed at shortlist.

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

Reference: automotive-transportation · CTO · Continental Europe · Gladwin International Leadership Advisors