IT Director Europe

CubeCold, owned by I Squared Capital, is building an integrated platform that provides food and pharmaceutical producers with end-to-end, temperature-controlled logistics solutions. The international CubeCold network for storage, transport, and value-added services was built by acquiring several family businesses in different countries. The IT Director Europe will lead the consolidation effort of integrating and structuring their data and technology.

About X

In the food industry, fresh products must be kept chilled or frozen to ensure food safety and quality. In the pharma industry, continuous temperature-controlled storage is often required to keep medicines or vaccines safe and effective. Companies in these sectors need cold storage capacity – which is, traditionally, difficult or expensive to build and maintain in-house. CubeCold was founded in 2021 to solve this challenge.

The company offers end-to-end logistics solutions for storing and transporting food and pharmaceuticals all over Europe. It has built a platform for clients to find and connect with solutions at different locations. The scale-up acquired several medium-sized, family-owned companies to build an international network for temperature-controlled storage and logistics. The company has thus built a presence of 21 locations in the UK, Italy, and the Benelux. In the future, CubeCold wants to make several strategic acquisitions each year, to increase its European market share.

CubeCold is supported by I Squared Capital, a globally operating private equity firm focused on investing in infrastructure, such as energy, utilities, telco, and transport. The entire CubeCold team – including its central team at the Rotterdam headquarters and local teams in the acquired businesses – consists of 450 colleagues. With the support and financial strength of I Squared Capital, CubeCold has all the ingredients to realize its European growth ambition.

Vacancy: IT Director Europe

The IT Director Europe will be pivotal in ensuring CubeCold’s digital operations to support the company’s growth, by aligning technology initiatives with business goals and ensuring the IT systems are innovative, scalable, and secure. A key driver of value creation for CubeCold is the smooth integration of newly acquired businesses. The IT Director leads these integration processes from an IT perspective, focusing on:
• A solid business applications roadmap
• Digital transformation (including infrastructure)
• Security
Reporting to the CTO, the IT Director Europe will contribute to and execute the IT strategy with an eye on business objectives and operational efficiency. A priority in this process is implementing the new ERP system. In addition, the roadmap for next year includes the implementation of a company-wide CRM system, an HR system, Advanced Analytics (Power BI), and various operational system implementations (WMS, TMS, yard management).

Leading the company’s digital transformation initiatives, including end-to-end automation, data analytics, and cloud integrations, and selecting and implementing cutting-edge technologies per industry best practices, will be another responsibility of the IT Director Europe. They will also oversee the optimization and management of CubeCold’s IT infrastructure, ensuring all systems operate smoothly.

This role is also responsible for cybersecurity, compliance, and data governance. The candidate will design and implement robust measures to protect CubeCold’s data and systems and ensure the IT operations comply with GDPR and regulatory standards in the different countries. In charge of vendor management, the IT Director Europe will furthermore oversee relationships with IT partners and service providers. They will negotiate contracts with these parties and ensure delivery against agreements.

Budget and team management
This person will also manage the IT budget and ensure cost-effective delivery of services as well as proper allocation of resources for future technology investments. For this, a good understanding of the ROI principles and value creation in a PE-owned buy-and-build company is key. Minimizing OPEX is an important KPI for this role.

Lastly, this role manages the IT team across the Rotterdam-based headquarters and the different European locations, currently around ten people. In addition, CubeCold has outsourced certain IT functions, a set-up which the IT Director will evaluate and adjust if needed.

“The IT Director Europe will foster a culture of professionalism and continuous improvement. In this role, they will get the chance to deliver one company-wide IT platform through which multiple family businesses are integrated, creating the opportunity for the entire company to achieve operational excellence.” –Maarten Res, CTO

In this role, an experienced IT leader gets the opportunity to contribute to CubeCold’s integration-focused strategy from a data and IT perspective, allowing this unique company to grow its success across Europe.

Interested?

CubeCold is working with Top of Minds to fill this vacancy.
To express your interest, please contact Jessica Lim at jessica.lim@topofminds.com