India & emerging markets CHRO — Chemicals (regional P&L)

Position overview

Gladwin International Leadership Advisors is representing a confidential organisation in Chemicals & Materials on a senior CHRO leadership mandate anchored in Canada. The remit explicitly spans Malaysia, China, Australia.

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

This is a role for someone who has already led through at least one major inflection: restructuring, M&A, regulatory reset, or category shift.

Context you will inherit

• Market & sector: Regulatory complexity — REACH (Europe), EPA (USA), BIS (India), and chemicals regulations across 40+ export markets require dedicated regulatory affairs leadership
• Geographic spine: Primary hub Canada with explicit corridor responsibility across Malaysia, China, Australia.
• 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: Sustainability transformation — bio-based, circular, and green chemistry are becoming competitive necessities; R&D and strategy leaders who can navigate this transition

The mandate (12–24 month arc)

1. Transformation people plan: Align organisation design to strategy — spans, layers, and decision rights.
2. Change leadership: Equip executives to lead through restructuring, automation, or geographic shifts without burning trust.
3. Diversity & inclusion: Move from programmes to measurable outcomes in hiring, promotion, and succession data.
4. Industrial relations / employee relations: Stabilise hotspots; ensure policies match local law and company values.
5. Learning: Invest in leadership curricula tied to business priorities — not generic catalogues.
6. HR analytics: Give the CEO and CFO a clear view of workforce cost, productivity, and risk signals.

Responsibilities (representative)

• Upgrade manager capability — especially feedback, coaching, and performance management at scale.
• Simplify rewards; reduce exception culture that undermines internal equity.
• Own employee listening and action planning tied to retention drivers.
• Partner with legal on investigations, policies, and regulatory people topics.
• Build HR analytics that support board and audit committee oversight.

Leadership profile

• Judgment: High signal-to-noise under pressure; ethical clarity; willingness to halt initiatives that break risk appetite.
• Education: Strong undergraduate grounding; MBA / advanced degree / professional qualification common at this level.
• Business partnership: HR seen as a strategic function, not only policy and service delivery.
• Communication: Executive presence in English; additional languages valued where market-relevant.
• Geographic muscle: Comfort operating from Canada with regular engagement across Malaysia, China.

Team & culture

The organisation runs hot — ambitious targets and thin buffers. You need to channel energy into sustainable rhythms: predictable planning, honest risk surfacing, and recovery time for teams after major pushes.

Success measures (examples)

• Financial: Revenue and margin vs. plan; cash conversion; capital efficiency.
• Strategic: Share in priority segments; customer retention in anchor accounts; milestone delivery on transformation.
• People: Engagement trends; regrettable attrition in critical roles; diversity of succession slate.
• Risk: Audit and regulatory outcomes; conduct events; operational resilience metrics.

First 90 days (orientation arc)

• Days 1–30: Shadow key customer journeys or operations — paper over slides where reality diverges.
• Days 30–60: Cut or pause low-value projects freeing capacity for strategic work.
• Days 60–90: Publish first integrated forecast or plan under your ownership — even if directional.
• Build trust with risk, legal, and audit through transparency — surprises erode licence to move fast.
• Pick one cultural signal (e.g. meeting hygiene, promotion criteria) and model it relentlessly.

Stakeholder map (illustrative)

• Internal: Matrix of global product houses and local P&L; tension is normal — your role is to broker trade-offs with data.
• External: Customers who influence reference deals; government or industry bodies in regulated sectors.
• Capital providers: Banks, sponsors, or minority investors — each needs a slightly different narrative on risk.

Travel & mobility

Travel weighted to priority markets and quarterly global or regional forums; flexibility for crisis windows.

Compensation

Competitive CHRO compensation for Chemicals & Materials leadership: cash, incentive, benefits, and potential equity or carry (case-dependent). Discussed with finalists only.

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 Canada. For similar active mandates, browse open roles or submit a general profile through executive search inquiry.

Reference: chemicals-materials · CHRO · Canada · Gladwin International Leadership Advisors