Chief Product Officer — Export Manufacturing Platform

The mandate

A German export platform will consolidate production from smaller legacy factories into two principal sites. The physical plan assumes most products can transfer, but the portfolio contains regional variants, ageing control systems, customer-owned tooling and low-volume products whose margins exclude support burden. The planned replacement Chief Product Officer will decide what moves, what is redesigned, what is partnered and what reaches an orderly end of life.

Approximately 2,050 employees and material partners sit across product management, engineering, manufacturing, service, sales and programme delivery. The CPO owns product strategy, lifecycle, requirements, roadmap, configuration offer and portfolio economics. Operations owns plant transfer, engineering owns technical release and commercial teams own customers; the CPO makes the product choices that allow those functions to execute coherently.

Transfer decisions require family economics. A low-volume variant may use common modules and protect a strategic customer, while a seemingly standard product can demand unique test infrastructure or certification. The CPO will include engineering effort, tooling, inventory, qualification, warranty and service-life obligation. Decisions need a clear horizon rather than a single-year gross margin.

Customer commitments must be surfaced early. Contracts may require source approval, continuity periods, spare support or notice before discontinuation. The product leader will map these obligations to each transfer route and negotiate alternatives where the original promise is no longer sustainable. Internal closure dates do not erase external commitments.

Product architecture can reduce transfer burden. Common modules, interfaces and software baselines may enable several variants to move together, but rushed standardisation can force customers to requalify unnecessarily. The CPO will select redesigns where lifecycle value exceeds conversion risk and will separate genuine platform work from cosmetic catalogue simplification.

Bridge production and last-time-buy choices must consider demand uncertainty and shelf life. Customers should receive enough evidence to decide responsibly. The business will not inflate near-term revenue by forcing stock into distributors, nor leave safety-critical users without an approved pathway.

Service documentation must survive the product move. Parts catalogues, repair limits, software support, training and field bulletins often sit with the sending factory even when manufacturing transfers. The CPO will make lifecycle support a formal cutover workstream, identify who retains design authority for legacy serials and fund technical expertise after the final production unit leaves a closing site.

The incumbent will retire after the portfolio decision phase begins and can provide structured handover. This replacement must preserve deep customer and product history while making choices that predecessors were not asked to make. The onsite Munich role sits on consolidation governance and travels to closing and receiving sites.

What you will own

• Decide transfer, redesign, partner, bridge and end-of-life routes by product family.
• Build complete lifecycle economics including complexity and support obligation.
• Govern customer requirements, qualification and discontinuation communication.
• Set architecture and roadmap choices that simplify the future portfolio.
• Align product decisions with plant, engineering, supply and service readiness.
• Allocate development capacity across transfer and growth priorities.
• Establish accountable product managers and succession.
• Track retained value, transfer cost and post-move portfolio performance.

The first 12 months

In the first 70 days, classify product families by economics, transfer difficulty, customer obligation and future relevance. Review the most disputed cases with plants and customers and identify assumptions unsupported by tooling, certification or demand. Agree decision dates before physical closure makes choices irreversible.

By month six, approve a route for all priority families, begin customer qualifications and conclude partner or end-of-life plans. Fund selected architecture changes and bridge builds with explicit demand and disposal ownership. Complete leadership and product-manager decisions before incumbent handover ends.

At twelve months, protect at least 96% of targeted strategic revenue, reduce active low-value variants by 25% and complete 95% of required customer approvals before transferred production ships. Portfolio contribution should improve by three percentage points after full transfer cost. No protected customer should experience an unannounced end-of-life or unsupported spare obligation.

What the sponsor will measure

• Product choices made before property deadlines dictate them.
• Lifecycle economics reflecting tooling, qualification and support.
• Customer obligations resolved through evidence and fair notice.
• Architecture investment creating meaningful transferable platforms.
• Bridge inventory and last-time buys governed against real demand.
• Product leadership strengthened through a difficult portfolio transition.

The person

You bring 22–28 years in product leadership for industrial equipment, automation, transport systems or another long-lived export portfolio. You have led product decisions through footprint change and can show where customer obligation or lifecycle economics altered a closure plan.

Your previous scope should include more than €1 billion revenue, 1,500 employees and partners or several thousand active configurations. Evidence must cover a product exit, a transfer qualification and an architecture simplification. German and English fluency and board-level commercial and technical credibility are required.

Compensation and terms

The base range is €340,000–460,000 plus annual incentive and long-term incentive linked to retained value, portfolio quality, transfer, customer outcomes and leadership. This permanent onsite Munich role reports to the Group Chief Executive or designated sponsor and requires site and customer travel. Timing will support the planned retirement transition.

Confidentiality

The platform, closing sites, products, customer contracts, tooling and transition routes are confidential. Detailed information follows fit, conflicts and signed confidentiality. Applicants must not contact distributors, customers, suppliers or employees to identify the business.