THE COMPANY
Our client is a globally dominant market leader in the industrial engineering and automotive sector, representing the pinnacle of mechanical and technological precision. As they navigate the transition toward a highly autonomous, AI-driven future, the organization is undergoing a fundamental architectural shift.
Within the company’s digital target organization, the "Corporate Applications" division serves as a critical pillar. The organization is now seeking a high-caliber leader to own this dimension, responsible for transforming the enterprise application backbone into a scalable, standardized, and industrialized production capability.
THE ROLE
This is a mission-critical executive mandate. You are the ultimate orchestrator of the enterprise application landscape, as SVP, Head of Corporate Applications. Your primary mission is to accelerate the transition from legacy systems to a future-proof, standard-first architecture. This role combines the total operational responsibility for enterprise stability with the strategic leadership of a massive, multi-year transformation program. You will wield full budget accountability and manage a delivery capacity, serving as the primary bridge between digital strategy and operational excellence.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
- Accelerated SAP S/4HANA Transformation: Lead the end-to-end execution of the global S/4HANA rollout through 2030. You are the driving force behind the design, build, and deployment phases, enforcing "clean-core" principles to reduce complexity and fragmentation.
- Industrialization of Delivery: Replace fragmented, local approaches with an industrialized, factory-based deployment model. You will scale processes across global waves and clusters, ensuring predictable, high-speed delivery while maintaining operational continuity.
- Architecture Convergence: Aggressively reduce system variants and local customizations. You will steer the convergence of ERP and affiliated enterprise platforms, ensuring seamless integration with data/AI platforms and shopfloor systems.
- Operational Resilience & Stability: Guarantee zero-disruption to enterprise operations during the migration from R/3 to S/4HANA. You will manage the coexistence roadmap, incident governance, and release management with surgical precision.
- Strategic Stakeholder Steering: Act as the executive interface to global operations, commercial leadership, and regional organizations. You will define the balance between standardized process harmonization and business-critical differentiation, driving alignment at the highest level.
YOUR PROFILE
- Transformation Veteran: 15+ years of senior leadership experience in ERP and enterprise platform management. You have a proven track record of successfully steering multi-year, large-scale global transformation programs in complex, industrial environments.
- SAP & Architecture Expert: You possess deep, hands-on knowledge of SAP R/3 and S/4HANA transformations. You understand the strategic necessity of a "standard-first" architecture and have the resilience to enforce it across a federated organization.
- Delivery Industrializer: You are not just a strategist; you are an executor who knows how to scale delivery capacity and steer large-scale FTE organizations using KPI-based performance systems.
- Financial & Executive Acumen: Experience with budget responsibility >100m EUR. You have the executive presence to push back against customization demands and the commercial skill to manage complex vendor relationships and contract steering.
- Education & Languages: Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field. Fluency in English is mandatory; German is highly desirable to navigate the core corporate culture effectively.