How to Find a C-Level Logistics Executive: There Are Fewer Than 500 in All of Poland

In this episode of Rozmowy Logistyków, Adam Sobolewski talks with Agnieszka Mazurek-Szulim, a recruiter specializing in logistics, about how to find a logistics or supply chain director at C-level. They discuss how well the logistics function is represented on the boards of Polish companies.

C-LEVEL ISN'T A REGISTRY ENTRY, IT'S REAL INFLUENCE ON STRATEGY

The letter "C" in job titles (CEO, CFO, COO, Chief Logistics Officer) formally denotes the highest level of an organization, but the entry in a corporate registry (KRS in Poland, Handelsregister in Germany, RCS in France) alone doesn't settle anything — parent companies often register only the CEO or a single proxy in the registry, while the real operating leadership (the so-called board member, executive committee) functions outside that registry. The true marker of C-level is whether a person genuinely makes the most important decisions, is accountable for the strategy and direction of their area, and can connect it to finance, sales, and other company functions.

FEWER THAN 500 PEOPLE IN ALL OF POLAND

Market analysis (companies with over 200 employees) shows there are around 500 supply chain and logistics directors in Poland in total — and at the real C-level (executive committee) it's estimated at somewhere between 100 and 500 people in the entire country. It's a narrow professional specialty: a given city or region might have two or three such people, or none. An additional distortion is that not every "director of logistics," even at a large organization, actually holds a real C-level role — at family businesses where the owner personally approves every travel expense invoice, decision-making stays concentrated in one place regardless of the titles on business cards.

BOARDS ARE STILL DOMINATED BY SALES, FINANCE, AND MARKETING

The Korn Ferry report "Supply Chain Digital Disruption" (2018) noted that boards dominated by people with a sales, finance, or marketing background struggle to create genuinely executable operational strategies — because the decision-making group lacks a supply chain perspective. The situation is slowly changing: examples from the Polish market (Łukasz Boguszewski, who joined the CTC group's board after serving as head of logistics at eObuwie; Marcin Kućmierz, who as Managing Director for Central and Eastern Europe at Westwing had earlier built up the logistics function there) show a growing number of logistics professionals moving up into leadership roles.

WHY IT'S WORTH OUTSOURCING C-LEVEL RECRUITMENT

Executive Search recruitment firms have an advantage that's hard for an in-house HR department to match: they know specific people in the market, know who has already successfully delivered a similar project, and have a network that lets them quickly verify a candidate's reputation. That's crucial for major projects (an ERP/WMS/TMS rollout, opening a warehouse, logistics outsourcing), where what matters isn't general "logistics" experience, but a specific, comparable track record — because "logistics" at one company can mean something completely different than at another.

HOW CANDIDATES ARE VETTED: COMPETENCY INTERVIEWS AND SUBORDINATE REFERENCES

The process for vetting a C-level candidate rests on a competency interview tailored to the organization's specific needs, comparing previously delivered projects and checking their results, and references — not just from former bosses, but increasingly from colleagues and subordinates too. This matters especially when assessing soft skills: if an organization has a problem with team management, references from a candidate's former subordinates reveal much more than a conversation with their former boss.

CULTURAL FIT MATTERS AS MUCH AS HARD SKILLS

Assessing organizational culture (the set of values, norms, and behaviors typical of a given company) is a standard part of the recruitment process, not just at companies with German or French capital, as one might assume. A saying from the recruitment world captures the risk well: "you hire for hard skills and fire for a lack of soft ones" — a culturally mismatched candidate will either leave quickly or stay out of a sense of obligation, which serves neither side.

THE COST OF A FAILED DIRECTOR-LEVEL HIRE

Market estimates for specialist and middle-management roles put the loss from a failed hire at around 30-60% of that person's annual salary. At C-level, the cost tends to be much higher, especially when the organization has major transformation projects ahead of it (logistics outsourcing, opening a warehouse, replacing an ERP/WMS/TMS system) — the wrong person in that role means not just lost salary, but a year or more of lost time solving problems the organization had hoped this very hire would solve.