Independent Director for Industrial Cyber and Operational Technology
Germany·Technology & Digital Platforms·Enterprise technology and AI· Munich·Posted 10 July 2026
Applications close 4 December 2026
Enterprise technology and AI organisation in Germany
The problem this seat exists to solve
The director will bring industrial cyber-risk judgement to a board responsible for operations that depend on connected equipment and production systems. The seat requires understanding how technology decisions affect continuity, product quality, workforce safety and economic performance. The director shares collective governance responsibility and will work alongside, rather than replace, management and specialist assurance.
Board scrutiny organised around the operating system
Examine whether management knows which assets and connections are essential to production. Challenge assumptions about remote access, vendor maintenance, legacy equipment and the ability to restore configurations. Ask how changes are tested when downtime is costly and when ordinary enterprise technology controls cannot be applied without operational consequences.
Review the relationship between cyber, engineering and safety responsibilities. A control should not be accepted merely because one function believes another owns the consequence. Seek evidence that production leaders understand relevant exposure and that technical specialists understand the operating constraints.
Investment and risk acceptance
Contribute to decisions on modernisation, segmentation, resilience and specialist capability. Challenge proposals that promise comprehensive protection without explaining priority or residual risk. Equally, scrutinise repeated deferral based on the difficulty of interrupting production. Management should present a credible route from current exposure to an agreed position, with interim safeguards and clear ownership.
The director will not prescribe detailed configurations or lead response teams. Board escalation, reserved decisions and assurance routes should be clear before a major incident. Eligibility and any committee assignment will be determined for the actual entity, with relevant supplier or industrial interests disclosed.
Experience that gives the challenge weight
Candidates should demonstrate senior industrial technology, operations or cyber leadership with exposure to physical operating consequences. They must be able to translate technical uncertainty into board decisions without reducing it to a single score. Applications should discuss an investment trade-off where production continuity and security improvement had to be reconciled.
The appointment should improve the board's understanding of critical dependencies and the credibility of management's improvement plan. A useful outcome is earlier, better-informed action on vulnerabilities that matter to the industrial business, supported by evidence that recovery and operating response can work under realistic conditions.
Terms
- Where the board sits
- Munich, Germany
- Applications close
- 4 December 2026
- Appointment
- Board appointment
- Compensation
- EUR 70,000–120,000 per year (indicative annual board fee)
- Time commitment in this market
- Typically 4–6 supervisory board meetings a year, with audit committees meeting more often and a heavier reading load than a unitary-board seat implies.
Before you apply — Germany
No nationality or residency test applies to a supervisory board member. The barriers are structural — co-determination, the seat cap and German-language board process — not legal.
- Residency test
- None.
- Nationality test
- None.
- Work authorisation
- A supervisory board member attending meetings does not require a residence permit. A management-board (Vorstand) appointment for a non-EU national does, and is a substantially heavier process.
- Tenure limit once appointed
- No statutory cap. The Code recommends that the supervisory board decide, and disclose, how many of its shareholder representatives it considers independent, and treats more than twelve years' service as an indicator to be addressed.
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