Senior Vice President - Corporate Applications

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.