Chief Strategy Officer — Logistics Marketplace

The mandate

The marketplace connects shippers, freight forwarders and carriers across Southeast Asian trade lanes. Its growth model assumed that technology could coordinate transactions while local partners held transport and customs obligations. Regulators are now placing greater responsibility on digital intermediaries for identity, subcontracting, shipment data, prohibited goods and service conduct. The strategic question is not merely how to comply; it is which services and market structures remain attractive when the platform carries more accountability.

The Chief Strategy Officer will lead a roughly 325-person employee-and-partner perimeter through strategy, portfolio planning, policy analysis, partnerships and selected corporate initiatives. Country and functional executives own implementation. The CSO must convert regulatory scenarios into choices about market presence, transaction role, data, capital and customer promise, and ensure those choices are reflected in the operating model.

The platform can act as a lead contracting party, broker, technology provider or managed-service operator. Each position changes licensing, liability, control and revenue. Some corridors may warrant stronger direct control; others may be better served through a verified partner or software model. The appointee must resist treating one legal label as the answer across different actual behaviour.

Strategy must also account for customer and carrier trust. More verification and data can improve safety and trade integrity, but badly designed requirements can exclude smaller carriers or expose commercially sensitive information. The CSO will require proportional controls, clear purpose and an adoption path in every recommended model.

Regulatory intelligence needs ownership and expiry. Country teams currently report proposed rules alongside confirmed obligations, and strategy cases sometimes preserve an assumption after the underlying consultation changes. The CSO will create a source register, confidence level, decision owner and review date for material policy assumptions. Board choices should show which conclusions remain robust if a rule is delayed, narrowed or enforced differently.

Why this seat is open

The current CSO will step into a group investment role after an agreed handover. This planned replacement begins before regulatory changes take effect so the successor can challenge the existing market thesis and own the next planning cycle. No conclusion is predetermined, including retention of every current corridor.

What you will own

• Define strategic scenarios for platform accountability, licensing, customs data and subcontracted movement by market.
• Segment corridors and customer propositions by economic value, control requirement and right-to-win.
• Recommend direct, partner, software or exit models with clear liabilities and operating capabilities.
• Integrate regulatory evidence into three-year capital, product, data and workforce choices.
• Design strategic partnerships with governance, audit, information, remedy and exit rights.
• Establish proportionate carrier-verification and data principles with operations, risk and legal.
• Lead board portfolio reviews and track whether decisions are implemented by accountable executives.
• Develop strategy leaders who combine market, policy and economic evidence rather than presentation skill alone.

The first 12 months

In the first 90 days, review priority jurisdictions and six representative corridors, meet customers and carriers, and compare the platform's legal description with actual operations. Build scenario economics and identify commitments incompatible with likely obligations. Present a market-and-model decision map, including proof gates and transition consequences.

By month six, complete operating-model design in two priority markets, negotiate one strategic partnership to decision stage and embed regulatory scenarios in planning. Establish a portfolio review with named owners and stop work on at least one proposition whose control cost or right-to-win is inadequate.

At twelve months, secure board approval and commence implementation of the chosen model across priority markets, with every critical licence, data and partner condition owned. Reallocate at least S$75 million of planned capital or product investment through portfolio evidence. Maintain key-customer retention above 92%, verified-carrier adoption within target and no material regulatory surprise caused by an unstated operating role.

What the board will measure

• Market and service choices changed before irreversible commitment.
• Regulatory models aligned with actual platform behaviour.
• Corridor economics inclusive of control, data and partner obligations.
• Customer and carrier transitions that preserve trust and access.
• Partnerships that confer genuine capability with enforceable governance.
• Strategy implementation and leadership beyond the CSO's direct team.

The person

You have 22–28 years in strategy, policy, corporate development or business leadership for logistics, trade technology, marketplaces, payments or another regulated intermediary. You have redesigned a business model after regulation changed the platform's accountability and can describe what the company stopped doing.

Your decisions should have influenced at least S$400 million of revenue, transactions or capital and a multi-country ecosystem. You understand customs, licensing, data and partner economics sufficiently to frame choices with specialists. The board will test whether your scenarios changed investment, not only improved preparedness, and how you included smaller counterparties in design.

This hybrid Singapore role includes regional travel and reports to the Group Chief Executive or designated sponsor.

Compensation and terms

The base range is S$360,000–480,000 plus annual incentive measured through portfolio decisions, regulatory execution, reallocated capital, partnerships and leadership. This permanent hybrid role is based in Singapore and reports to the Group Chief Executive or nominated executive sponsor. The planned handover supports notice periods up to six months.

Confidentiality

The marketplace, jurisdictions, corridors, regulators and strategy options are restricted. Detailed materials follow relevance, conflict clearance and written confidentiality. Facts are composite and scale approximate; applicants must not seek confirmation through authorities, customers, carriers or advisers.