Fresh-Food Cold-Chain Platform Recovery Leader — Agribusiness

The mandate

The cold-chain technology executive departed after assurance found periods where sensor gaps were filled by averages without being visible to export-release teams. Two lots were held by overseas customers pending evidence, and custody transitions among packhouse, carrier, port and vessel cannot be reconstructed consistently. Quality has stopped automated release recommendations before the next high-volume harvest.

The interim must start within four weeks for eleven months, spanning affected-lot review, platform remediation, harvest peak and permanent succession. Search begins after the first ninety-day operating baseline clarifies the Quality and Supply accountability split. Six weeks of overlap are reserved; extension is possible only if crop timing moves a planned live qualification beyond the original calendar.

Handover requires every export lot to resolve to source, packing, custody, temperature, calibration, excursion, disposition and customer evidence; sensor absence and estimation must be explicit; and two harvest simulations plus one live peak must meet release thresholds. The successor will chair an unseen excursion case and accept residual device, carrier, port and customer-interface limitations.

The interim may quarantine lots in the digital platform, disable inferred readings, stop releases, redirect the sanctioned R$120 million recovery and appoint temporary control leads. Physical product disposition, customer remedy, permanent appointment, supplier termination and spending above budget require Quality, Supply or board approval. The leader cannot certify food safety or overrule authorised release personnel.

Farm-practice redesign, fleet procurement and commercial export strategy are outside this assignment. The executive may require evidence and interfaces but does not own crop planning, refrigeration engineering or historic sensor cleansing unrelated to an active lot, claim or retention obligation. Recovery must protect current-chain truth and prevent inferred continuity from masquerading as observation.

Why this seat is open

The finding exposed a platform designed to keep dashboards continuous rather than make evidence gaps decision-visible. Departure removed authority while held shipments and harvest deadlines continued. A temporary leader must support defensible lot decisions now and leave the permanent executive a qualified cold-chain system spanning organisations the group does not directly control.

What you will own

• Reconstruct affected lots through farm, packing, custody, sensor, calibration, excursion, transport, port, vessel and release records.
• Define lot and custody identity, observed versus inferred temperature, time alignment, calibration status, confidence and correction rules.
• Decide which digital recommendations may resume, require corroboration, need manual Quality review or must remain disabled.
• Direct harvest exercises covering sensor loss, calibration expiry, custody gap, refrigeration delay and conflicting carrier evidence.
• Establish partner contracts for hand-off acknowledgement, device health, data retention, excursion notification and investigation support.
• Govern remediation against released evidence, reduced held lots, faster exception resolution and fewer unsupported temperature assumptions.
• Transfer authority through a live peak, unseen excursion and successor acceptance of residual device and partner weaknesses.

Candidate qualifications

• Held executive cold-chain, food traceability or quality-platform authority across farms, processors, carriers, ports and export customers.
• Reconstructed lot custody and temperature evidence after sensor loss, calibration issue or partner hand-off gap.
• Distinguished observed, derived and estimated readings in a release process where product safety and commercial urgency conflicted.
• Worked with authorised Quality personnel without allowing platform leadership to assume release or food-safety accountability.
• Qualified heterogeneous devices and partner feeds under seasonal volume, connectivity and physical handling constraints.
• Handed a repaired cold-chain platform to permanent leadership after live harvest and independently repeated exception decisions.

Non-negotiables

• Available within four weeks with São Paulo presence and travel to production, port and export-chain sites during harvest.
• Has governed perishable physical-product evidence; general IoT or logistics-dashboard experience alone is insufficient.
• No undisclosed interest in sensor, carrier, traceability, assurance or refrigeration suppliers involved in scope.
• Will expose missing observation rather than use estimation solely to preserve apparent chain completeness.

1. 49 words maximum. State your Brazil availability and one cold-chain evidence gap whose affected lots you bounded.
2. 49 words maximum. How did you distinguish a valid temperature estimate from an observation in a product-release decision?
3. 49 words maximum. Which unseen custody failure would qualify a permanent successor to own the platform?