A Confidential CISO Search for a Pan-European Postal Joint Venture with Four-Region Security Scope

The business is a joint venture between two of Europe’s biggest domestic postal services, set up to provide an international e-commerce logistics platform linking merchants to postal and parcel delivery networks around the world. It has dual headquarters in Paris and Bern, operations in Europe, North America, and Asia-Pacific, and employs over 1,500 people worldwide. Information security is an integral component of the risk, compliance, and governance functions, and is closely tied to the management board. There is one security framework for all four operating regions, supported by a network of regional security officers.

This was a replacement search where the incumbent was still in the role. No announcement of a job. No ads. The company’s name wasn’t disclosed until candidates had signed a confidentiality agreement and gone through an initial screening. The entire process was by direct, confidential contact.

Other than confidentiality, the location requirement also narrowed the field. The role could be based in the UK, France, Germany, or Switzerland but required regular travel between Paris and Bern. Given the requirement for enterprise-scale CISO experience at a senior practitioner level, that combination established a specific and limited pool across Western Europe. The governance dimension of serving two national postal shareholders with distinct French and Swiss regulatory and cultural expectations was also a factor that shaped both the candidate profile and the way the search had to be managed.

Keller’s search was focused on information security leaders from large, multi-site organizations in logistics, financial services, and regulated industries where security operates at true enterprise scale and practitioners have real experience in engaging regulators and managing cross-regional governance. The client’s identity was safeguarded during the outreach and assessment process.

The executive spent his career in information security with regulated European financial institutions, building governance frameworks and security programs aligned to DORA, PCI-DSS, NIS2, GDPR, and PSD2. He had established and operated outsourced SOC operations according to MITRE ATT&CK, led incident response at institutional scale and interfaced directly with French financial regulators such as ANSSI, CNIL, ACPR, and AMF. His career has included positions in European, UK and international operations and he has the cross-regional coordination and board-level communication experience the role required. His professional motivation was directly related to the mission: building and strengthening security foundations across a complex, multi-region platform.