Continental Europe CTO — Logistics (Regional Leadership)

Position overview

Gladwin International Leadership Advisors is representing a confidential organisation in Logistics & Supply Chain 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.

Expect a mandate where credibility is earned in rooms with customers and regulators, not only in headquarters workshops.

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Context you will inherit

• Market & sector: Sustainability in logistics — EV fleet transition, green warehousing, and Scope 3 emissions reporting are becoming leadership requirements from major shipper clients
• Geographic spine: Primary hub Continental Europe with explicit corridor responsibility across Australia, Canada, Middle East.
• 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: Cold chain professionalisation — building temperature-controlled logistics operations that meet pharmaceutical GMP and food safety standards requires specialised technical and operational leadership

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The mandate (12–24 month arc)

1. Product-aligned tech: Tighten partnership with product and GTM so roadmaps reflect customer and revenue reality.
2. Cost of technology: Drive FinOps discipline — visibility, accountability, and trade-offs on build vs. buy.
3. Innovation portfolio: Balance horizon-one delivery with selective bets on differentiating capabilities.
4. Technical standards: Publish and enforce patterns that reduce one-off solutions across teams.
5. Regulatory tech: Where sector demands, ensure systems and controls satisfy audit and supervisor expectations.
6. Leadership communication: Make technology risk and opportunity legible to non-technical boards and investors.

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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.

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Leadership profile

• 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.
• Education: Strong undergraduate grounding; MBA / advanced degree / professional qualification common at this level.
• Communication: Executive presence in English; additional languages valued where market-relevant.
• Geographic muscle: Comfort operating from Continental Europe with regular engagement across Australia, Canada.

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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)

• 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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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

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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: logistics-supply-chain · CTO · Continental Europe · Gladwin International Leadership Advisors