Chief Commercial Officer — Vehicle-Software Programme

The mandate

A vehicle-software programme sells development, licences, connected services and long-term support through regional teams using different commercial assumptions. Some contracts recover engineering and cloud cost; others promise variants, uptime or updates without pricing the supplier and lifecycle burden. Market performance appears inconsistent because bookings, adoption and contribution are not measured alike. The board is creating a CCO to establish one commercial system without erasing justified local routes.

The CCO will lead approximately ¥9,150 billion in revenue and programme activity and 2,300 employees and material partners. Responsibility covers customer strategy, sales, commercial operations, pricing, contracting, channels, partnerships, revenue quality and commercial talent. Product owns roadmap, engineering owns feasibility and finance validates economics. The CCO owns customer commitments, price architecture and whether commercial execution converts capability into collectible, supportable value.

Software contracts require precise scope. A feature may be licensed per vehicle, bundled into a programme, activated later or supported through cloud service. Each model carries different adoption, performance and termination risk. The CCO will establish offer definitions, usage evidence, renewal rights, service levels, change control and end-of-support language that match production reality.

Supplier resilience is a commercial issue where customer promises depend on third-party stacks, cloud, mapping, semiconductor or specialist engineering. Deals will identify these dependencies, portability and contractual recovery. The programme will not guarantee uptime or change timelines beyond evidence and control, and contingency cost will enter price.

Why this seat is open

This is planned new hiring under the next operating model and has no predecessor. A four-to-six-month search allows the appointee to join before upcoming renewals and capital decisions. Existing regional commercial leaders retain their accountabilities until formal activation.

What you will own

• Define offers, pricing and commercial rights for software and connected services.
• Establish common revenue, adoption, contribution and forecast definitions.
• Govern customer commitments, variants, change control and lifecycle support.
• Incorporate supplier and platform resilience into contracting.
• Improve commercial execution while retaining justified market differences.
• Build regional commercial leaders and succession.

Deal review will focus on exception and consequence. Unique requirements must show customer value, engineering capacity, validation cost and ongoing support. Discounts need a reason, duration and expected behavioural change. Contracts depending on future product capability will carry evidence gates rather than optimistic dates treated as certainty.

Commercial forecasting will separate contracted, deployable, activated, billed and collected value. Regional leaders will own drivers including vehicle volume, release readiness, customer acceptance and renewal. Finance will reconcile forecast to cash and continuing obligations. Pipeline coverage cannot compensate for poor conversion definitions.

Customer governance will extend beyond procurement. Product, technology and operating sponsors should understand adoption and support, while commercial teams retain a single commitment record. Escalations will distinguish product defect, unmet scope, customer integration and supplier failure before remedy is negotiated. Strategic relationships will not bypass economics or change control.

Market variation will be reviewed through evidence. Regulatory terms, procurement culture, vehicle mix and customer operating model can justify different contracting or channel design; internal preference cannot. The CCO will compare renewal, collection, support demand and engineering change by market to decide where local practice should be retained, adapted or stopped. Commercial systems must support Japanese invoicing and customer governance while preserving a common economic view.

Partnerships and resellers will carry the same promise discipline as direct sales. Enablement will include technical boundaries, escalation, data handling and entitlement reconciliation. Incentives will depend on activated, collected and supportable value rather than signatures alone. The CCO will require portability or orderly exit where a partner controls critical customer access.

The first 12 months

Within 90 days, the CCO will review the 20 largest customer commitments, reconcile regional commercial definitions and assess leadership. Unsupported promises or unrecovered variants will be contained, and the sponsor will receive a pricing and contracting architecture.

By month eight, three markets should use common commercial evidence, five priority renewals or new deals should include revised lifecycle and supplier terms, and one low-quality offer should be redesigned or withdrawn. Commercial and finance forecasts will share drivers.

At year-end, price realisation should improve by 4%, forecast variance remain within 5% for three months and contracted-to-activated conversion rise by 15 percentage points. Ninety per cent of material contracts must identify third-party dependencies and support obligations, while overdue commercial changes fall 30% and no critical customer promise exceeds approved technical evidence.

What the board will measure

• Customer promises aligned with feasible software delivery.
• Price reflecting variation, resilience and lifecycle support.
• Comparable commercial execution across markets.
• Higher-quality revenue, adoption and cash.
• Strong regional leadership and succession.

The person

You are a CCO, software commercial president or automotive business leader with 22–28 years in connected products, enterprise technology or mobility. You have governed at least ¥5,300 billion and 1,600 employees. Evidence must include a software offer redesign, a contract whose supplier dependency you repriced and a regional commercial system producing sustained forecast improvement.

This onsite Tokyo position requires customer and regional travel. You can negotiate with technical depth while protecting durable relationships.

Compensation and terms

Base salary is ¥52–72 million plus annual incentive and LTI. Measures include price, revenue quality, conversion, forecast confidence, customer durability and succession. Final calibration will reflect the commercial perimeter, and a contractual notice period up to six months can be incorporated into joining plans.

Confidentiality

The programme, customers, suppliers, contracts and commercial evidence remain confidential. Further detail follows qualification and an undertaking. Tokyo and approximate figures are non-identifying.