Chief Product Officer — Aftermarket Services Business

The mandate

This aerospace aftermarket business supports a large installed base through spares, repair, overhaul, technical assistance, upgrades and availability agreements. Revenue is recurring, but the product architecture is fragmented. Similar customers receive different inclusions, response promises and asset pools; ageing equipment requires costly engineering; and long-term contracts were priced before current material, labour and obsolescence conditions. Growth in service activity has not translated consistently into lifecycle margin.

The group is creating a Chief Product Officer role to redesign the aftermarket portfolio around supportable outcomes. The CPO will own service-product strategy, lifecycle, catalogue, pricing logic, road maps, digital propositions and product economics. Operations owns repair and field delivery, engineering controls technical solutions, and commercial teams own accounts. The CPO must ensure each offer can be delivered, measured and sustained over its promised horizon.

This urgent appointment is not a mandate to increase parts prices indiscriminately or withdraw support from customers with older fleets. The board expects transparent value, disciplined standardisation and explicit choices about legacy obligations. Products must align customer readiness with the real cost and risk of keeping assets operational.

Scope and operating context

Based onsite in Munich, the role influences approximately 1,800 employees and material partners across Germany and a wider international region. The perimeter includes product management, portfolio strategy, pricing, lifecycle planning, digital services and product operations. Interfaces span repair shops, field service, engineering, supply chain, quality, airworthiness, finance, contracts, data and regional customer teams.

The installed base varies by platform, configuration, utilisation, environment and customer maintenance capability. A standard component repair may coexist with a mission-availability promise requiring spares pools, technicians, software and rapid engineering response. Catalogue labels can conceal very different cost and risk.

Legacy support is constrained by obsolete parts, tooling, test equipment, supplier exits and scarce expertise. Some customers hold contractual or regulatory expectations that extend for decades. The portfolio must identify when to stock, redesign, remanufacture, license or propose an upgrade rather than allow reactive shortages to determine service.

First-year agenda

The first ninety days will establish product and contract economics by installed-base cohort. The CPO will connect entitlement, usage, failure, removal, repair yield, turnaround, material, labour, freight, engineering, spares, credits and escalation. A sample of profitable and loss-making contracts will be reconstructed to reveal which assumptions changed and which bespoke terms drive cost.

A service-product architecture will separate transactional spares and repair, planned support, upgrades, technical services, asset pools and availability outcomes. Each will have a defined customer need, scope, exclusions, inputs, service level, price model, data requirement and lifecycle owner. Local variation will be controlled rather than hidden inside account correspondence.

Availability products will receive special governance. The offer must define covered assets, operating profile, baseline condition, customer maintenance, data, fleet size, performance metric, exclusions and remedies. Risk pooling works only where failure and usage evidence are credible. Small or unusual fleets may need different pricing or a partnership model.

Cost recovery will begin with controllable leakage. Unrecorded engineering, expedited freight, repeat repair, poor no-fault-found handling, low-yield processes and entitlement ambiguity will be addressed. Price change will follow clear scope and value where possible. The CPO will not ask customers to pay for internal failure that should be corrected.

Legacy sustainment plans will be created by product family. Engineering, supply chain and operations will compare lifetime material, alternate qualification, repair development, additive or remanufacture, tooling investment, licensed source and upgrade. Plans will state decision dates before support options disappear. Product management will own customer and economic pathways.

Digital diagnostics and prognostics will be offered where they improve a real service decision. Data access, aircraft or asset integration, model performance, cyber, certification and operator workflow will be explicit. Predictive claims must be validated in the relevant operating context. A dashboard that does not alter maintenance or inventory will not count as a product.

The catalogue and commercial process will align. Sellers will see eligibility, entitlement, configuration, lead time and approved options. Non-standard terms require lifetime cost and an exit. Renewal proposals will surface changed utilisation, inflation, failure and support assumptions before price and service are committed.

Product lifecycle governance will continue after launch. Managers will review adoption, margin, turnaround, service performance, credits, exceptions and customer outcome. Repeated operations pain will trigger product redesign. End-of-life decisions will include contractual duty, regulator and customer communication, spares and technical data.

By year-end, the business should have clearer service products, improved visibility of contract economics, fewer unmanaged exceptions and funded sustainment paths for critical legacy families. Cost recovery should come from better design, scope and delivery as well as justified commercial action.

Leadership responsibilities

The CPO will chair aftermarket portfolio and lifecycle governance and advise the group sponsor on investment, pricing and legacy support. They will own the integrity of each service promise while respecting independent engineering, airworthiness and quality authority.

They will build product managers who understand assets in operation, repair shops and customer missions. Teams will spend time with field and operations colleagues and be accountable for post-sale outcomes. The CPO will develop successors and reduce dependence on technical experts nearing retirement.

Strategic customer dialogue is part of the role. When a contract can no longer be delivered economically or safely, the CPO must present evidence and alternatives early. Trust requires acknowledging internal failures while defending fair payment for changed scope or value.

Measures of success

The executive committee will track product and contract contribution, entitlement accuracy, repair turnaround, yield, fill, availability, service credits, expedited cost and engineering burden. Measures will be segmented by installed-base cohort and service model.

Lifecycle health includes obsolescence plans, alternate qualification, spares coverage, tooling and skill continuity. Product measures include standard adoption, exception age, digital-service use and renewal quality. Price alone will not be treated as cost recovery.

Candidate profile

Candidates should bring 22–28 years in aerospace aftermarket, industrial services, defence sustainment or another safety-critical installed-base business. They must have owned product or portfolio economics across long-term support and redesigned loss-making service offers.

The board will seek examples of correcting an availability contract, choosing a sustainment path before obsolescence became critical and withdrawing a digital proposition that did not change maintenance decisions. Candidates should understand repair, spares, reliability, configuration, contracts, pricing, data, airworthiness and lifecycle cost.

The successful CPO will be commercially firm and operationally grounded. They must work credibly with engineers and customers, simplify without erasing legitimate fleet difference and make long-horizon decisions under incomplete failure evidence.

Compensation and appointment terms

The annual base range is EUR 285,000–390,000, supplemented by annual incentive and long-term participation. Reward will balance lifecycle margin, customer readiness, service quality, sustainment and leadership depth. Final terms will reflect comparable aftermarket scope and verified forfeited awards.

Confidentiality

The business remains unnamed because installed-base, contract, reliability and sustainment data are sensitive. Detailed information will follow identity, conflict and confidentiality review. Applicants must not submit controlled maintenance records, customer entitlements, failure data or proprietary repair instructions.