Chief Supply Chain Officer — Engineering Centre

The mandate

A Budapest engineering centre is moving from captive delivery to global ownership of selected products and platforms. The transition depends on specialist software, validation equipment, prototypes, components, cloud environments and engineering suppliers whose contracts were negotiated by sending businesses. Some licences cannot transfer, laboratory lead times exceed the migration plan and suppliers retain design knowledge not covered by usable documentation.

The Chief Supply Chain Officer will govern technical supply supporting approximately 1,200 employees and material partners within an engineering perimeter near HUF 255 billion. Scope includes category strategy, supplier selection, contracts, licences, technical services, laboratory and prototype capacity, supplier risk, inventory and knowledge transfer. Engineering owns specifications; product leaders own roadmaps; legal and risk retain professional authority. The CSCO makes supply viable, resilient and economically transparent.

The assignment is not conventional indirect procurement. A cheaper tool may disrupt validated evidence; an alternate component may require redesign; a specialist supplier can hold tacit knowledge essential to global ownership. The CSCO must challenge specification where appropriate while ensuring accountable engineers accept any technical or product consequence.

Export, data and intellectual-property obligations cross the supply portfolio. Remote support, prototypes and design access need explicit permitted-use and location rules. Contract signature is insufficient unless access, recovery and exit can work operationally.

Prototype and component traceability require particular control. Early engineering builds may use low-volume parts, temporary suppliers or manual records that would be unacceptable in a released product, yet their test evidence can influence later design. The CSCO will set provenance, custody and disposition standards proportionate to use, prevent unapproved components from entering validation and ensure that obsolete or sensitive prototypes are returned, destroyed or retained under documented authority.

Supplier quality reviews will trace a failed part or tool configuration back to the affected test evidence and product decisions, not close at replacement delivery.

Corrective action must address recurrence across the wider portfolio.

Why this seat is open

The incumbent has accepted an external role on an accelerated timetable. A category director can maintain renewals but lacks enterprise authority over mandate readiness and supplier concentration. This is an urgent replacement sought within six to eight weeks. The departure is not connected to supplier conduct or an undisclosed control failure.

What you will own

• Map every critical licence, component, laboratory, supplier, technical dependency and transfer constraint.
• Build category strategies supporting product ownership, lifecycle economics and resilience.
• Negotiate transfer, use, data, intellectual-property, support and exit rights for incoming mandates.
• Secure laboratory, prototype and scarce-component capacity against approved product roadmaps.
• Test sole-source and alternate-supply claims with engineering and risk owners.
• Require suppliers to transfer source, documentation and practical capability where ownership moves.
• Govern inventory and obsolescence for prototypes and specialised components.
• Build technical procurement, supplier-quality and supply-risk leadership.

The first 12 months

Within 45 days, the CSCO will identify supply blockers and single points of failure for the first mandate wave. By day 90, each will have a commercial, technical and risk disposition, and migration dates unsupported by supply evidence will be challenged formally.

By month eight, priority licences and supplier contracts should support Budapest ownership, two critical continuity tests should be complete and laboratory capacity should reconcile to the roadmap. At least one sole-source dependency will be competed, redesigned or accepted explicitly with a funded mitigation.

At year-end, all critical product supply should have current ownership and continuity evidence, addressable external run cost should fall by 10% and unplanned laboratory delay by 30%. Supplier-held sole knowledge should be eliminated for priority mandates, with no material export, licence or design-control breach during transfer.

What the board will measure

• Global mandate readiness supported by executable supply and rights.
• Supplier concentration and technical dependency made visible early.
• Verified savings that preserve engineering and validation outcomes.
• Transfer of knowledge, access and exit capability into the centre.
• Supply leadership and successors across technical categories and risk.

The person

You are a Chief Supply Chain Officer or technical procurement leader who has supported engineering ownership across borders. You understand licences, laboratories, prototypes and specialist suppliers and can engage engineering leaders without accepting every specification as immutable. Relevant backgrounds include automotive, industrial technology, medical devices, aerospace and complex R&D.

You bring 18–22 years of experience and have governed at least HUF 145 billion while supporting 850 engineers or more. The committee will examine a sole-source specification you changed, a technical supplier whose knowledge you transferred and a migration delayed for an unrecognised supply constraint.

The position is onsite in Budapest with travel to suppliers and sending businesses.

Compensation and terms

For the supply-chain appointment, base compensation is HUF 135–185 million, alongside annual incentive and long-term incentives. Measures include mandate readiness, resilient supply, verified cost, knowledge transfer and leadership depth. Savings that weaken technical evidence do not qualify. Final terms reflect current mix and scale, with customary vesting and performance adjustment.

Confidentiality

The products, suppliers, laboratories and transfer programme are confidential. Controlled information follows qualification and a mutual undertaking. The Budapest location and approximate operating scale must not be used to identify the centre.