SVP – Corporate Development — Process-Manufacturing Network

The mandate

A process-manufacturing network is evaluating acquisition opportunities and portfolio composition as part of a broader quality-improvement initiative that is harmonising specifications, laboratory methods and customer-change obligations across sites. The board has created an SVP – Corporate Development appointment to lead portfolio strategy and ensure transaction cases reflect operational realities and integration requirements.

Approximately 2,950 employees and material partners sit within the network affected by transaction choices. The SVP leads strategy-to-deal translation, target assessment, valuation, diligence, negotiation, approval, integration thesis and separation architecture. Quality, operations, legal and finance retain their independent accountabilities. The role must ensure their evidence changes price, structure, obligations or the decision itself.

Quality diligence will follow products to customers. Certificates and audit scores can look acceptable while test methods differ, changes were not notified or rework is embedded in routine yield. The corporate-development leader will require traceability from raw material through specification, method, release and complaint. Unknown exposure should become a funded diligence action, contractual protection or explicit valuation downside, never an optimistic footnote.

The divestiture presents different risk. Shared laboratories, permits, utilities, technical experts and quality data cannot be separated by allocating cost centres. The SVP will map services and decision rights, identify which capability must transfer or be recreated and price transition support realistically. A buyer must be able to release product and investigate complaints safely on day one.

Synergy claims will distinguish removal from improvement. Closing a laboratory may reduce reported overhead but extend release times, increase transport risk and weaken product expertise. Consolidating specifications may create value only after customer approval. The leader will sequence benefits after prerequisites and make dis-synergies visible.

Deal governance must remain independent of sunk effort. Advisers and executives may be invested in completion, but the decision record should show what changed as new evidence emerged. Earn-outs, escrows, indemnities or staged completion can allocate uncertainty; none can repair an operating model that the buyer cannot control.

This unplanned role reports directly to the Group Chief Executive or designated sponsor. The existing small development team is capable financially but needs an industrial leader who can challenge advisers and translate plant evidence into transaction consequence. The successful candidate can reshape the pipeline and team.

What you will own

• Rebuild acquisition and divestiture cases using quality-recovery evidence.
• Direct product, laboratory, regulatory, customer and operational diligence.
• Translate uncertain exposure into valuation, structure, covenants and decisions.
• Design separations covering permits, data, experts, shared assets and transition services.
• Rephase synergies against qualification, capability and customer prerequisites.
• Maintain board decision records, scenarios and walk-away conditions.
• Select and govern advisers while preserving internal ownership of conclusions.
• Develop corporate-development talent with deep manufacturing judgement.

The first 12 months

In the first 45 days, revisit both live transactions, identify assumptions invalidated by quality findings and define rapid confirmatory work. Personally review priority product flows and shared capabilities with technical leaders. Present the board with proceed, restructure, defer and stop scenarios, including cash and liability ranges.

By month six, resolve or contractually allocate the material unknowns, complete a day-one separation architecture and reset integration or transition-service requirements. Introduce a transaction diligence standard for specifications, laboratories, permits, product genealogy and customer consent. Reassess the wider pipeline against management capacity during recovery.

At twelve months, complete only transactions that meet revised return and controllability thresholds, with 100% of high-risk findings reflected in price, structure or funded action. Separation readiness should close all critical day-one gaps before signing. Synergy forecasts must distinguish prerequisite spend and stay within 10% of validated milestones during the first two post-decision quarters.

What the sponsor will measure

• Technical evidence changing transaction decisions rather than decorating diligence reports.
• Quality liabilities valued, allocated and governed transparently.
• Separated operations able to release product and meet obligations from day one.
• Synergies timed after customer, capability and system prerequisites.
• Willingness to stop a deal despite sunk cost and executive advocacy.
• A stronger development team integrated with operating leadership.

The person

You bring 22–28 years in corporate development, portfolio strategy, transaction services or industrial P&L leadership, including process manufacturing. You have led deals where product quality, environmental permits, technical services or shared sites materially altered value. Pure financial modelling without negotiation and implementation ownership is inadequate.

Your prior remit should include cumulative transaction value above €1.5 billion or a comparable industrial portfolio. Evidence must cover a diligence finding that changed price or structure, a complex separation and a deal you stopped. You can question laboratory and plant evidence without exceeding your expertise and can communicate uncertainty precisely to directors.

Compensation and terms

The base range is €240,000–320,000 plus annual incentive linked to decision quality, protected value, separation readiness and portfolio outcomes. This permanent onsite Rotterdam role reports to the Group Chief Executive or designated executive sponsor and requires transaction and site travel. Availability should reflect live decision urgency.

Confidentiality

The network, counterparties, transactions, quality findings, valuations and separation plans are strictly confidential. Identifying materials follow suitability, conflicts and signed confidentiality. Candidates must not approach advisers, potential buyers, targets or site employees to investigate the situation.