2025 was a turbulent year for Supply Chain and Procurement hiring. Geopolitical instability, shifting tariff policies, ongoing global conflicts, and broader economic uncertainty created sharp peaks and significant troughs in activity throughout the year.
Despite a very quiet April–September period, Q4 saw a clear resurgence in hiring as confidence returned and previously delayed decisions were released.
Below is a brief wrap-up of Q4 2025, and our outlook for 2026.
Q4 2025 Executive Hiring Snapshot
Q4 was a surprisingly busy quarter for Supply Chain and Procurement moves, with 46 C Suite moves recorded by our team, distributed with a majority in FMCG and Retail, with some activity across Industrials and Life Sciences.
Within this, we saw 7 CPO moves, 33 CSCO moves and interestingly, 6 CEO/Chair moves in which Supply Chain leaders were directly promoted or appointed into the top role within their respective companies.
Top Chief Supply Chain & Procurement Officer Moves in Q4 2025
North America
- Stanley Black & Decker: Agustin Lopez Diaz appointed Global Chief Supply Chain Officer (from Schneider Electric)
- Novolex: Tamer Abuaita appointed Chief Operating Officer (from Stanley Black & Decker)
- Ingram Micro: Deepa D appointed SVP Global Operations & Supply Chain (from BlueScope)
- Trane Technologies: Gary Guo appointed Chief Global Integrated Supply Chain Officer (from The Coca-Cola Company)
- Carnival Corporation: Javier Echevarría appointed Chief Supply Chain & Procurement Officer (from Ingredion)
- PVH Corp: Patricia Gabriel appointed Chief Supply Chain Officer & Global Head of Operations (from Capri)
Europe
- Carlsberg Group: Torsten Steenholt appointed EVP Integrated Supply Chain (from Novonesis)
- TVH: Tanja Dysli appointed Chief Operations Officer (from IKEA North America, CSCO)
- Imperial Brands: Sami Pascal Naffakh appointed Chief Supply Chain Officer
- Brenntag: Bjørn Rici Andersen appointed Chief Operating Officer (from Rockwool Group)
- Sonova Group: Roberto Di Fiore appointed Group Chief Operations Officer (from WSAudiology)
- Essity: Ilham Smaali appointed Chief Supply Chain Officer
- Burberry: Matteo Calonaci appointed Chief Operating & Supply Chain Officer
- IFF: Oliver Kemmerich appointed SVP Global Operations (from Symrise)
- Twinings: Toby Chapple appointed Chief Procurement Officer (from McCormick)
Asia-Pacific
- IBL Group: Omer Awan appointed Chief Executive Officer (from Procter & Gamble, Product Supply AMEA)
- Godrej Industries Group: Mohnish Varma appointed Chief Supply Chain Officer (from Olam)
- Jubilant FoodWorks: Virender Sehrawat appointed EVP, Head of Integrated Supply Chain (from Kenvue)
GCC
- Elite Agro Holding: Piotr Teodorczyk appointed Chief Supply Chain Officer (from Suntory Holdings)
- Aramex: Amadou Diallo appointed Group Chief Executive Officer
2026 Outlook: From Caution to Momentum
If 2025 was about weathering the storm, 2026 is shaping up to be a year of renewed strategic momentum.
Organisations are returning to the hiring table with greater clarity and confidence, shifting focus from short-term stabilisation towards long-term capability building and competitive advantage. Boards and executive teams are increasingly aligned on investing ahead of disruption rather than reacting to it.
We are already seeing early signs of increased hiring appetite across both senior leadership roles and the critical “next layer” beneath the C-suite.
Geographic Outlook for 2026
United States
We expect to see consistently high levels of hiring activity in 2026, supported by reshoring initiatives, automation investment, and continued leadership movement across large, complex Supply Chain organisations. In particular, I anticipate a high level of activity by Private Equity portfolio companies, and a high demand for talent who can manage complex integrations and M&A processes as dealmaking continues to pick up.
Europe
Europe had a quiet 2025, but we anticipate this to change in 2026. In Q4, we saw early signs of renewed confidence emerging, with high levels of activity anticipated in Benelux and Iberia especially. While certain markets such as Switzerland and the UK have been particularly quiet in 2025, we expect a slow return to strength, particularly at C Suite and -1 levels, especially within life sciences and advanced manufacturing.
Asia Pacific Asia was consistently busy throughout 2025, with huge investments continuing in China+1 strategies, and high levels of activity in the face of tariff uncertainty and the need for resilience in the wake of geopolitical instability. While these strategies will continue to remain firmly in place, there has been a notable trend emerging of Chinese multinationals rapidly expanding globally, increasing demand for internationally experienced, Chinese-speaking Supply Chain leaders, both in Asian and Western markets.
GCC
The GCC continues to strengthen as a global logistics and manufacturing hub. Investment remains high across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and neighbouring markets, driving strong demand for senior Supply Chain and Procurement leaders. We suspect this will only accelerate in 2026, with no signs of slowing down any time soon.
The Most In-Demand Supply Chain Capabilities for 2026
While there will inevitably be demand for all end-to-end Supply Chain functions, below are 5 of the more notable skillsets that we predict will be in the highest demand in 2026.
Industry 4.0 Manufacturing & Logistics Automation
As the technology continues to rapidly advance, we anticipate continued investment in smart factories and advanced logistics solutions, driven by labour constraints, cost pressure, and resilience agendas. This will create a tight squeeze on the already limited pool of Engineering, Automation and Technology leaders to implement, roll out and operate these systems on large-scales, with high levels of demand and a relatively low supply.
Shared Services & Customer Collaboration Models
As companies continue to invest in lower-cost hiring locations, and move certain functions outside of high-cost locations, we expect to see an increased demand for leaders to build and lead global shared service centres, control towers and customer collaboration capabilities. This includes not only the leaders to centrally develop these capabilities, but high demand in locations in Eastern Europe, Iberia, Southeast Asia, India and Latin America for in-market leadership across various functions.
Procurement Digitisation & Value Creation
As companies continue to demonstrate successes with Procurement digitization programmes, the demand will remain strong for procurement leaders with proven transformation, digitisation, and value-creation credentials, able to not only create a strong digital environment in the short term, but a long-term vision for their Procurement organisations as new emerging technologies drive change.
Operational Excellence & Continuous Improvement Leadership
As cost pressures remain high, leaders able to create strategies to do more with less will remain in demand. Leaders able to identify optimisations across end-to-end network design, from top level design to on-the-ground improvements will remain in high demand.
AI & Emerging Technology Foundations
This list wouldn’t be complete without mention of AI. However, contrary to much of the talk, we do not think that specific Supply Chain centric AI talent will be in high demand in 2026. While there is huge noise in the market around these technologies, we see very little dedicated hiring of this talent, as the technologies and skillsets are just too early. We expect to see this pick up aggressively in 2027 and beyond, but this year, we expect to see the hiring of Supply Chain leaders who can lay the data foundations and build strategies, with execution starting as technology catches up – rapidly.
Looking Ahead
As we move into 2026, Supply Chain remains firmly at the centre of business strategy. The demand for leaders who can balance resilience with efficiency, transformation with continuity, and global scale with local execution continues to grow.
For organisations willing to invest ahead of disruption, 2026 presents a significant opportunity to build competitive advantage through Supply Chain leadership.