Chief-of-staff to regional chair (CTO calibre) — Telecom · China

Position overview

Gladwin International Leadership Advisors is representing a confidential organisation in Telecommunications on a senior CTO leadership mandate anchored in China.

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

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

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Context you will inherit

• Market & sector: Talent retention — telecom companies struggle to compete with technology sector compensation packages for engineering and digital talent
• Geographic spine: Primary hub China with reporting lines into global / regional matrix partners.
• Organisation stage: Working capital, liquidity, and funding mix are under scrutiny alongside headline revenue growth.
• Stakeholders: Stakeholders span board or regional executive committee, global functional heads, JV partners, and strategic account buyers.
• Secondary lens: Rural and deep-rural connectivity — the government's BharatNet programme and expanding rural data services create operational leadership requirements in non-metro markets

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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.

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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.

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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: Deep experience leading in or from China with credible local stakeholder judgment.

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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.

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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

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

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Compensation

Package aligned to CTO benchmarks in Telecommunications — 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: telecommunications · CTO · China · Gladwin International Leadership Advisors