Head of Chemicals — Continental Europe (CTO-level mandate)

Position overview

Gladwin International Leadership Advisors is representing a confidential organisation in Chemicals & Materials on a senior CTO leadership mandate anchored in Continental Europe. The remit explicitly spans Australia, Canada, Middle East.

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

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: China+1 opportunity capture — scaling operations, building quality systems, and developing customer relationships to capture global chemical supply chain diversification requires experienced export-oriented commercial leaders
• Geographic spine: Primary hub Continental Europe with explicit corridor responsibility across Australia, Canada, Middle East.
• 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: Regulatory complexity — REACH (Europe), EPA (USA), BIS (India), and chemicals regulations across 40+ export markets require dedicated regulatory affairs leadership

The mandate (12–24 month arc)

1. Platform thinking: Shared capabilities (identity, payments, messaging) consumed by product teams — stop duplicate builds.
2. Quality at scale: Test strategy that scales with release frequency — automation first, manual where it adds signal.
3. Edge & latency: Where geography matters, improve performance and data residency posture deliberately.
4. Green IT: Energy and carbon awareness in architecture choices where material to brand and regulation.
5. Tech due diligence: On acquisitions, protect against hidden liabilities in code, security, and contracts.
6. Succession in engineering: Reduce bus factor on critical systems through pairing, docs, and rotation.

Responsibilities (representative)

• Drive platform consolidation where fragmentation hurts speed or cost.
• Establish technical programme management for large migrations or rewrites.
• Improve engineering metrics — lead time, change failure rate, incident trends.
• Represent technology risk and opportunity clearly to board and investors.
• Ensure regulatory expectations on systems are met in financial services, health, etc.

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.
• Scale experience: Systems and organisations that grew materially under your technology leadership.
• Geographic muscle: Comfort operating from Continental Europe with regular engagement across Australia, 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)

• 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.

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 CTO remuneration in Chemicals & Materials 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 Chemicals & Materials and Continental Europe. For similar active mandates, browse open roles or submit a general profile through executive search inquiry.

Reference: chemicals-materials · CTO · Continental Europe · Gladwin International Leadership Advisors