Managing Director – Regional Business — Export Manufacturing Platform

The mandate

A German export-manufacturing platform is replacing a historically local sourcing model with a network of regional and global suppliers. The programme promises resilience and cost improvement, but its implications extend into product design, labour, customer certification, working capital and trade compliance. Accountability currently sits across global functions. The board is creating a Managing Director – Regional Business seat to own the German P&L and ensure the sourcing model strengthens rather than fragments the enterprise.

The perimeter encompasses approximately 3,325 employees and material partners across factories, engineering, commercial, supply chain, customer projects and country functions. The Managing Director reports to the Group Chief Executive and board and holds regional P&L, cash, people, safety and customer accountability. Global procurement retains category leverage; the regional leader approves how sourcing decisions enter products, plants and contracts within the delegated framework.

The first requirement is a fact-based component strategy. Not every locally sourced item is inefficient, and not every global quotation is comparable. Tooling, freight, duties, payment terms, quality response, engineering effort, buffer stock and ramp loss must enter landed economics. Critical knowledge or short-response supply may justify regional capacity even at higher unit price.

Customer and regulatory obligations can constrain transfer. Engineered products may require source notification, testing or updated origin documentation. The Managing Director will ensure programme schedules include those steps and that sales teams do not promise savings or dates before approval. Trade and sanctions controls must follow sub-tier origin, not merely the invoicing address.

Workforce implications deserve direct leadership. Changes to fabrication, machining or incoming inspection can alter roles and apprenticeship demand. The company will consult appropriately, present the industrial logic honestly and invest in capabilities that remain strategic. Productivity cases cannot count workforce reductions while simultaneously assuming unavailable skills for supplier development and final integration.

The regional operating model will reconcile plant and project economics. A sourcing saving that creates commissioning delay or warranty cost elsewhere is not a regional benefit. The Managing Director will introduce cross-functional product-family reviews that connect supplier performance, engineering changes, factory flow, project margin and cash.

This planned new role reflects the board’s decision to create clear regional accountability before the next sourcing wave. Existing functional executives retain important authority and are not interim placeholders. The appointee must form a collaborative leadership team, define reserved matters and address duplication without launching an indiscriminate reorganisation.

What you will own

• Carry the German regional P&L, cash, customer commitments, safety and people agenda.
• Convert global sourcing proposals into product-family decisions using full landed economics.
• Govern supplier qualification, engineering change, origin, trade and customer approval.
• Align workforce and capability plans with the future make-buy model.
• Integrate plant performance, project margin, warranty and working capital.
• Decide regional capital and capacity within board delegation.
• Establish clear interfaces with global procurement, engineering and product leaders.
• Build regional succession and constructive employee and stakeholder relationships.

The first 12 months

Within the first 70 days, review priority categories and product families, visit principal plants and meet selected customers and suppliers. Reconcile the savings case to quality, inventory, engineering and trade exposure. Pause transfers whose qualification or continuity assumptions are unsupported and establish one regional decision forum.

By month six, approve the future source and capability model for major components, complete workforce and customer plans and renegotiate supplier commitments where forecasts are unclear. Integrate sourcing progress into project-margin and cash reviews. Confirm regional leadership accountabilities and remove repeated escalation loops.

At twelve months, realise at least €60 million of verified annualised value, reduce single-source exposure on critical components by 35% and improve supplier on-time quality and delivery above 95%. No customer delay, customs breach or material warranty event should result from an unapproved transfer. Regional cash conversion should improve by ten days and forecast operating profit remain within 6% for three quarters.

What the board will measure

• Sourcing value based on full regional economics and realised performance.
• Critical supply more resilient without excessive buffer inventory.
• Customer, engineering and trade obligations completed before transfer.
• Workforce choices aligned to capabilities the future model still requires.
• Regional P&L revealing cross-functional consequences.
• Productive interfaces between country authority and global scale functions.

The person

You bring more than 28 years in engineered manufacturing, including substantial German and international P&L leadership. You have changed a make-buy or sourcing network while remaining accountable for customers, factories and employees. Procurement leadership alone will not satisfy the enterprise scope.

Your prior remit should exceed €1.5 billion revenue and 2,500 employees and partners. Evidence must include a supplier transfer you stopped or redesigned, a workforce consultation and a product-family economics recovery. German and English fluency are required, along with board communication and credibility in factories and customer project reviews.

Compensation and terms

The base range is €475,000–650,000 plus annual incentive and long-term incentive linked to regional value, delivery, resilience, cash and leadership. This permanent onsite Munich appointment reports to the Group Chief Executive and board and requires international travel. Notice up to six months may be considered within the planned governance transition.

Confidentiality

The platform, regional structure, suppliers, products, workforce plans and customer obligations are protected. Identifying materials follow qualification, conflicts and signed confidentiality. Applicants must not use supplier or customer contacts to determine the client or its sourcing moves.