Cocoa-Origin Execution Recovery Leader

The mandate

The responsible-sourcing director resigned after several cocoa consignments reached European storage with valid commercial documents but no defensible reconciliation among producer plots, cooperative intake, warehouse movements and exported lots. Local volume exceeded mapped production in two clusters, bag identities changed during aggregation and due-diligence statements were prepared from trader summaries. The group must keep factories supplied while implementing the current EUDR timetable and 2026 digital-tool changes through physical origin control, not retrospective data repair.

The interim must mobilise in Amsterdam within three weeks for twelve months, covering one main crop and the opening of the following season. The first 30 days will classify every in-transit and committed lot, quarantine unsupported volume and establish origin decision rooms. Two producer-group intake cycles and three factory receipts will test the recovered method. A permanent search opens in month seven, followed by six weeks of field and shipment handover.

Exit is achieved when all accepted cocoa can be traced from eligible plot and producer group through intake, aggregation, storage, processing, shipment and factory receipt with mass balance and conversion loss visible; unsupported volume follows a controlled commercial disposition; and two independent reconciliations reproduce the same lot population. The successor must receive unresolved polygons, disputed farm rights, trader reservations, origin capacity limits, outstanding statements and the next crop's release calendar.

The executive may suspend company purchase release, reject a lot from the compliant stream, require physical segregation, redirect verified stock among approved factories and authorise origin verification or recovery spending up to EUR 5 million. Procurement retains supplier award and price; Legal owns regulatory interpretation and submissions; Quality retains product release; producer rights and land determinations remain with competent parties; the board approves supplier exit or structural sourcing change.

Farm mapping as a standalone exercise, legal opinion, certification sales, land-tenure adjudication, farmer-remediation programmes and replacement of traceability platforms are outside scope. The leader must use the European Commission's current implementation timetable and tools as operating inputs without promising that a digital acceptance proves the underlying cocoa existed where claimed. This recovery concerns volume, identity, custody and decision evidence through live trade.

Why this seat is open

The resignation exposed that sustainability teams owned policy, traders owned volume and warehouses owned bags, but nobody could stop an unsupported lot across the whole chain. Factory continuity creates real pressure to accept plausible aggregates. The board has created a temporary origin authority through one crop cycle while it recruits a leader with both commodity and regulatory-operating depth.

What you will own

• Reconcile contracted, harvested, stored, processed, shipped and received cocoa by plot set, producer group, lot and conversion state.
• Quarantine unsupported volume and define the evidence, authority and physical action required for release or alternative disposition.
• Establish intake and aggregation controls that preserve producer, bag, weight, warehouse, blend and destination relationships.
• Test mapped production against plausible harvest, duplicate polygons, cooperative membership and stock carried between crop periods.
• Govern trader and processor handovers so transformation loss and split or merged lots remain reproducible at factory receipt.
• Run two independent lot reconciliations and challenge any digital statement whose physical source population cannot be recreated.
• Induct the successor across origin decision rooms, disputed lots, supplier positions and the next crop release sequence.

Candidate qualifications

• Held cocoa, coffee, rubber or comparable agricultural-origin supply authority across producer groups, traders and processors.
• Has blocked commodity volume after farm, harvest, aggregation or mass-balance evidence failed under factory-continuity pressure.
• Understands geolocation, smallholder intake, warehouse custody, transformation loss, shipping lots and factory receipt operationally.
• Can implement deforestation due-diligence controls without offering legal, land-tenure, certification or public-policy conclusions.
• Has worked directly in West African origin networks and challenged both trader assurance and implausible mapped production.
• Completed a permanent handover after origin controls survived a crop transition and multiple live European import movements.

Non-negotiables

• Can start in Amsterdam within three weeks and sustain approximately 55% origin, port and factory travel.
• Brings live agricultural lot and origin authority; sustainability reporting or mapping software experience alone is insufficient.
• Accepts Procurement, Legal, Quality, producer-rights and board boundaries on contracts, filings, release and supplier exit.
• Will disclose interests involving traders, producer groups, certification bodies, mapping firms, processors and commodity NGOs.

1. 49 words maximum. Describe cocoa or another crop volume you rejected after mapped production failed a physical plausibility test.
2. 49 words maximum. Confirm your Amsterdam availability and the largest origin network you controlled through harvest.
3. 49 words maximum. Which warehouse event most often breaks plot-to-export reconciliation despite complete commercial documents?