Chief Risk Officer — Cold-Chain Division

The mandate

A cold-chain division requires executive-level integration of quality, cyber, supplier and continuity risk. Operational leaders manage day-to-day recovery and improvement, but no single executive independently connects exposure across the chain of custody. The board has created an urgent CRO appointment to establish integrated assurance and restore confidence in risk governance.

Approximately 1,575 employees and material partners work across refrigerated transport, warehouses, packaging, quality, engineering, technology, customer operations and specialist carriers from Chicago. Reporting to the Group Chief Executive and relevant board committee, the CRO owns enterprise risk, independent assurance, compliance coordination, resilience, issue governance and risk reporting. Quality and product-disposition authorities retain their formal independence.

The first task is to reconstruct recent excursions from source evidence. Sensor readings, calibration, door events, dwell, ambient conditions, route deviation, packaging qualification and human response must form a common timeline. The CRO will distinguish product exposure from data loss and late intervention; neither a stable final reading nor an inconclusive investigation automatically demonstrates safe custody.

Alert governance needs precise thresholds and action. Warning, alarm, acknowledgement, escalation and disposition are different events. Monitoring teams require customer- and product-specific instructions, with named cover around the clock. Metrics will show elapsed time to competent action rather than celebrate alerts closed by an operator without authority.

Risk appetite will translate into shipment decisions. Criteria for continued movement, quarantine, reconditioning, customer consultation and disposal must be understood before an event. Commercial pressure or scarce replacement stock cannot weaken technical disposition. Where evidence remains uncertain, the accountable authority and rationale must be recorded.

Sensor architecture creates its own risk. Device placement, calibration, battery, connectivity, time synchronisation and data retention influence conclusions. The CRO will sample device performance through real routes and compare independent references. A large stream of readings is not assurance if the organisation cannot prove which device accompanied which product.

Carrier and facility partners extend the custody boundary. Contracts need equipment standards, alert access, maintenance evidence, incident timeframes and audit rights. Supplier scorecards will combine excursion frequency with response quality and recurrence. Low event reporting from a partner with weak telemetry will be treated as uncertainty, not superior performance.

Packaging qualification must reflect lane conditions. Seasonal heat, delay, customs holds, hand-offs and loading practice can exceed laboratory assumptions. Risk will challenge whether qualification remains applicable when product, pack-out or lane changes. Reuse and preconditioning controls deserve the same attention as transport equipment.

Cyber resilience matters because monitoring and routing are digital. Device compromise, platform outage or integration error can obscure product state. Exercises will test safe decisions when live data is unavailable, including manual readings, customer communication and later reconciliation. Restoring a dashboard without validating the missing interval does not close the exposure.

Customer notification should be timely and technically honest. Agreements differ, but the organisation needs escalation rules that prevent local teams from delaying an uncomfortable conversation. The CRO will test whether notification contained the known facts, uncertainty, containment and decision route without premature assurances.

Issue management will aggregate weak signals. Similar failures across different lanes, customers or suppliers may indicate one control problem. Corrective actions require effectiveness sampling after implementation; training attendance or revised procedure does not prove recurrence is prevented. Extensions need compensating control and visible risk acceptance.

Continuity plans will address refrigeration capacity, power, fuel, specialist drivers, packaging supply, border disruption and alternative facilities. Live exercises should move representative product or simulate the full custody record. An alternate warehouse that cannot receive customer data or preserve qualified handling is not an operational fallback.

Risk culture will be judged in dispatch and control rooms. Staff must be able to stop, quarantine and escalate without retaliation for service impact. The CRO will establish confidential routes for unresolved concerns and examine incentive measures that reward on-time delivery without recognising safe custody.

What you will own

• Cold-chain risk appetite and independent challenge.
• Excursion reconstruction and assurance methodology.
• Alert, escalation and product-disposition governance.
• Sensor, packaging, lane and calibration risk.
• Carrier, facility and specialist-supplier oversight.
• Cyber and operational continuity assurance.
• Issue effectiveness and board reporting.
• Risk capability, culture and succession.

The first 12 months

Within 30 days, reconstruct priority events, verify around-the-clock alert ownership and escalate any shipment population whose custody evidence is unreliable. Give the board a clear view of exposure and recovery decisions.

By month six, implement risk thresholds, independent sensor and supplier sampling, customer-notification standards and live continuity exercises. Train first-line leaders to attest their controls using shipment evidence.

At twelve months, reduce preventable excursion recurrence by 60%, achieve competent response within standard for 98% of critical alarms and independently verify every high-risk lane. All severe events must reach the designated customer and committee route on time, with 95% of corrective actions proven effective and no suppression of technical disposition.

What the committee will inspect

• Excursions reconstructed through physical and digital evidence.
• Alarm closure separated from competent action.
• Product decisions protected from commercial influence.
• Supplier confidence adjusted for telemetry quality.
• Continuity preserving an auditable custody record.
• Front-line staff able to stop unsafe movement.

The person

You bring 22–28 years in risk, quality, regulatory or operations leadership across pharmaceutical, food, clinical or other controlled-temperature logistics. Your record includes enterprise CRO or independent-assurance authority, sensor systems, third-party carriers, customer incidents and board committees in North America.

Candidates must describe an excursion whose apparent cause changed after reconstructing evidence, and a first-line attestation they rejected. This permanent Chicago appointment is onsite, with presence across warehouses, control centres, carrier facilities and customer reviews.

Compensation and terms

Base compensation is USD 360,000–480,000 plus annual incentive and long-term participation linked to custody assurance, incident response, control effectiveness, resilience and risk-team succession. The permanent onsite Chicago CRO reports to the Group Chief Executive and relevant board committee. This urgent, unplanned appointment will follow accelerated but complete diligence.

Confidentiality

The division, products, customers, routes, facilities, incidents, monitoring design and assurance findings are confidential. Further access depends on suitability, conflicts and executed confidentiality. Candidates must not contact cold-chain operators, healthcare customers, sensor providers or regulators to investigate the identity behind this mandate.