A sector that hires under pressure
Logistics businesses in Vietnam tend to hire leadership at moments of strain - a network that has outgrown its processes, a new facility that has to come online, a customer contract that exposes a service gap, or an investor who wants margins defended rather than volume chased.
That shapes the search. The brief is rarely "find us a good operations director". It is closer to "find us someone who has fixed this specific thing before", and the mapping exercise has to be built around the problem rather than the title.
Sub-sectors we work in
Freight forwarding and customs
Commercial and operations leadership where customer relationships and regulatory fluency both sit with the same person.
Warehousing and distribution
Site and network leadership, including automation and WMS implementation mandates.
Last-mile and on-demand delivery
Operations leadership at the intersection of fleet, technology and a large flexible workforce.
Cold chain
A genuinely narrow pool. Temperature-controlled storage and distribution leadership combines asset management, compliance and service reliability, and few people in Vietnam have run all three at scale.
Roles we handle
Chief operating officer and general manager for logistics businesses; operations and network directors; commercial and business development directors; supply chain directors inside manufacturers and retailers; warehouse and distribution centre leadership; and the finance leadership that asset-heavy logistics businesses depend on.
What we look for
Three things separate strong candidates in this sector from plausible ones.
- Evidence on unit economics. Cost per order, cost per pallet, cost per kilometre. Candidates who lead with volume growth and cannot talk about unit cost have usually been carried by a growing market.
- Experience of a specific failure. Peak-season collapse, a lost anchor customer, a facility migration that went badly. People who have been through one and can describe what they changed are worth more than people with an unbroken record in easy conditions.
- Credibility with a frontline workforce. Logistics leadership that cannot hold a room of drivers or warehouse supervisors does not last, however good the strategy deck is.
We write these judgements into the shortlist rather than keeping them to ourselves. If a candidate is strong commercially and thin operationally, you will read that in the assessment - it is usually the most useful sentence in the document.
Cold chain specifically
Cold-chain leadership is the narrowest pool we work with in this sector and the one where mapping matters most. The relevant experience sits across a small number of operators, a handful of manufacturers with their own distribution, and a few multinational entrants. In practice a credible map for a senior cold-chain role is a short document, which is precisely why it is worth having before you commit to a brief.
How we work
Market map first, direct approach, assessed shortlist within ten business days, reference and background checks, and offer management through notice. Success-based fees, no retainer, 60-day replacement guarantee on executive placements. Details on the fees page.