Regional Chief Executive Officer — Logistics Marketplace

The mandate

This regional marketplace connects shippers with road, urban and cross-border capacity across Southeast Asia. Growth by country has produced an attractive booking line but uneven economics. Dense domestic lanes support healthy matching and service; some international corridors rely on manual brokerage, repeated customs intervention and incentives to keep carriers available. Enterprise customers buy regional coverage, making simple country exits difficult. The Regional CEO must choose where integration creates value and where partnership or a narrower promise is more honest.

Approximately 1,200 employees and material partners sit within the perimeter across country leadership, commercial, operations, marketplace, customer support and control functions. Singapore is the regional centre, while authority is deliberately distributed because licences, carrier markets and border practice differ. The CEO owns the regional P&L, capital allocation and leadership team and will present directly to the group board.

The strongest assets are trusted enterprise relationships, a substantial carrier network and useful shipment data. Weakness lies in inconsistency: lane contribution is calculated differently, service recovery depends on local escalation and regional product priorities are crowded by one-off customer requests. The successor must build a coherent portfolio without removing the local judgement that cross-border logistics demands.

Country economics must also be comparable without becoming fictional. Foreign-exchange exposure, duties, tax, cash collection and carrier payment practice change the cost of a regional shipment. The CEO will require finance to show these effects by corridor and commercial leaders to state which party bears delay or border cost. This will expose contracts that appear attractive only because loss sits in another country ledger.

Why this seat is open

The incumbent will return to their home market after completing an agreed regional term. This planned replacement has a five-month overlap for customer, regulator and leadership handover. The board wants a successor selected before the annual capital cycle so that the new CEO can own lane choices and next year's operating plan.

What you will own

• Segment the portfolio by lane, customer need and service model, using fully loaded contribution, cash, control burden and strategic value.
• Decide where the marketplace should operate directly, broker through partners, acquire capability or narrow its promise.
• Reset carrier propositions by lane, addressing payment timing, cancellation, wait time, claims and reliable access to demand.
• Align regional enterprise contracts with actual country and border capability; stop selling uniformity that operations cannot deliver.
• Establish common marketplace, service and financial definitions while giving country CEOs explicit exception authority.
• Improve customs, documentation and hand-off control for priority cross-border corridors.
• Allocate product and operational capital to density and repeatable capability rather than country politics.
• Build a diverse regional leadership bench and credible succession for key country roles.

The first 12 months

The first quarter should include field review of six priority lanes, meetings with carriers of different sizes and reconstruction of the 30 largest regional accounts. Agree one lane P&L with finance, quantify service-recovery cost and map regulatory dependencies. Present direct, partner, repair or exit recommendations, including the customer transition implications of each.

By month six, implement new governance on three corridors, renegotiate structurally weak enterprise commitments and pilot carrier terms suited to waiting and border risk. Assign regional product capacity only to repeatable problems. Resolve at least two country leadership or decision-right ambiguities identified during diagnosis.

Within twelve months, improve contribution across retained corridors by 15%, reduce shipment exceptions on priority cross-border lanes by 30% and achieve 95% on-time carrier payment. Regional enterprise retention should exceed 92%, with loss reasons explicit. Working capital should improve without stretching small carriers, and 80% of product development should support capabilities used in more than one market.

What the board will measure

• Lane-level economic improvement and execution of explicit portfolio choices.
• Service reliability and documentation quality across borders.
• Carrier retention, payment and fair allocation of disruption cost.
• Enterprise customer confidence after coverage promises are made realistic.
• Country and regional decision rights operating without hidden duplicate governance.
• Cash, leadership quality and early disclosure of regulatory or operational downside.

The person

You have 28+ years in logistics, freight marketplaces, express, forwarding or another cross-border network and currently hold regional CEO, business president or substantial country leadership. You have closed or partnered a lane as well as opened one. Experience across several Southeast Asian regulatory and commercial contexts is essential.

Candidates should have owned at least S$550 million of revenue, bookings or accountable portfolio and led 900 or more employees and partners. You can distinguish marketplace liquidity from brokerage labour, explain customs risk to a board and build followership across country leaders with strong local identities. References will focus on decisions you made when a regional customer request conflicted with lane economics.

This is an onsite Singapore appointment with frequent regional travel and direct reporting to the Group Chief Executive and board.

Compensation and terms

The role offers S$700,000–950,000 base plus annual incentive and long-term incentive, calibrated to verified regional scope. Measures include lane economics, service, carrier outcomes, cash and leadership. This permanent appointment is onsite in Singapore and reports to the Group Chief Executive and board. The planned handover supports notice of up to six months where required.

Confidentiality

Client identity, country footprint, corridors and enterprise accounts are restricted. Qualified candidates will receive them after reciprocal assessment, conflict screening and signed confidentiality. Figures and operating characteristics are intentionally rounded and combined; applicants must not approach likely carriers, shippers or employees.