COO – Regional Operations — Advanced-Node Design Organisation

The mandate

A Japanese advanced-node design organisation is supporting current products while moving architecture, IP, tools and teams toward a new roadmap. Programmes compete for compute, verification, product engineering and customer-support talent, and transition milestones do not expose shared dependencies. The planned replacement COO – Regional Operations will establish one operating system across generations.

Approximately 950 employees and material partners span design programmes, enablement, supply operations, customer support and functions. The COO owns operating plan, resources, delivery, partners, cash and transformation and reports to the Group Chief Executive or sponsor. Technical leaders retain sign-off.

Roadmap readiness will follow dependencies: process kit, IP, libraries, tool version, verification, package and customer environment. A programme cannot remain green after a common prerequisite moves.

Current-product obligations need funded owners. Field issues, security updates, quality investigations and end-of-life cannot lose experts prematurely. Resource transfers will use readiness and succession evidence.

Compute and specialist capacity require transparent priority. The COO will expose queues, reruns and decision ageing and allocate against milestone consequence, not executive volume.

External commitments for masks, foundry, packaging and licences will be staged against technical maturity and customer demand. Cash and cancellation exposure will be visible.

Configuration authority will prevent uncontrolled transition. Process kits, libraries, IP, constraints, tool releases and verification models must form a compatible baseline. A late update cannot silently invalidate sign-off evidence. Deviations will state affected programmes, owner, customer consequence and expiry.

Vendor support will be scheduled as a resource. Foundry, EDA and IP specialists serve competing customers and may not be available at a debug peak. The COO will secure escalation, evidence packages and permitted data exchange before critical milestones, rather than relying on relationship strength.

Customer operations will enter programme governance. Evaluation systems, software readiness, security review and qualification are dependencies, not commercial footnotes. External decisions will carry expected evidence and age, ensuring uncertainty is not converted into assumed approval.

Legacy flow retirement requires reproducibility. Tool versions, environments, design records and experts may be needed for a field investigation years later. Decommission decisions will include archive, retrieval test, support ownership and security maintenance, preventing savings from destroying the ability to diagnose an older product.

Leadership incentives will favour early risk and complete release. Programmes should not remain green by moving work into waivers or future integration. Measures will cover re-spin cause, decision ageing, rerun, waiver retirement and reuse of verified assets across the organisation.

Organisation capacity will include customer and partner time zones. A roadmap can appear staffed while critical support depends on the same people covering design reviews and late-night external escalations. The COO will model workload, fatigue and succession, funding regional support or changing commitments before burnout becomes a delivery event.

Quality learning will transfer across programmes without crossing customer confidentiality. Common flow or IP defects should trigger controlled review, while customer-specific evidence remains segregated. Programme operations will ensure corrective action reaches reusable systems and effectiveness is verified on later milestones.

Business continuity will test loss of compute, EDA access and a critical expert during concurrent tape-outs. Backlog, data restoration, licence priority and customer communication must be demonstrated. A backup site without compatible environments or authorised access will not be counted as resilient.

Programme economics will include reruns, duplicated environments, vendor support and delayed customer engineering. The COO will ensure cost improvements do not simply move work into technical teams or future release gates.

Forecast overrides require named approval.

The incumbent retires after a structured handover. The onsite Tokyo role will preserve trusted operating relationships while modernising programme governance.

What you will own

• Integrate roadmap and lifecycle operating plans.
• Govern shared compute, IP, specialist and lab resources.
• Establish tape-out and customer readiness evidence.
• Protect current-product and security obligations.
• Stage external capacity and vendor commitments.
• Improve programme, cash and decision forecasting.
• Build operating leadership and succession.
• Report cross-programme truth to sponsors.

The first 12 months

In the first 60 days, map roadmap dependencies, resources and external commitments and identify duplicated assumptions. Establish one readiness system.

By month six, stabilise shared constraints, protect lifecycle support and rephase unsupported commitments. Complete key leadership transitions.

At twelve months, achieve 90% milestone predictability, halve critical decision ageing and deliver 95% of protected tape-out and customer gates. No field obligation should fail because expertise moved early, and external exposure should remain inside approved limits.

What the sponsor will measure

• Roadmap dates grounded in dependency evidence.
• Current products supported throughout transition.
• Shared resources allocated transparently.
• External commitments staged responsibly.
• Technical sign-off protected.
• Incumbent knowledge transferred into a stronger system.

The person

You bring 22–28 years in advanced-node semiconductor operations, programme or engineering leadership in Japan. You have managed concurrent tape-outs and generation transition.

Your prior scope should include 700 employees and partners or ¥100 billion of programme value. Evidence must include a delayed tape-out, shared-resource decision and lifecycle-support trade-off.

Compensation and terms

Base compensation is ¥52–72 million plus annual incentive and long-term incentive linked to delivery, lifecycle support, cash, transition and leadership. The Tokyo appointment is permanent and onsite, reporting through the designated executive sponsor or directly to the Group Chief Executive. Timing supports the planned retirement.

Confidentiality

The organisation, roadmap, products, tools, suppliers and customer programmes remain confidential. Detail follows suitability, conflicts and signed confidentiality. Applicants must not contact vendors or employees to identify the enterprise.