Change & Transformation Lead

Svitzer offers an exciting opportunity to be part of shaping how a global frontline company grows. We have an ambitious growth strategy, but as our company has evolved, we have accumulated a lot of complexity across our organization. To successfully scale, we need to simplify how we work and empower our frontline. We have designed our new operating model, and we are now ready to implement the first phase, while still working on the details for our frontline operations.

As our Change & Transformation Lead, you will lead the anchoring of our transformation and strategic ambitions into leadership behaviors, organisational practices and culture to support customer focus and sustainable business performance. The key challenge is to make change a core skill in Svitzer, by making our transformation relevant, practical and lasting.

About Svitzer

Svitzer is a leading global towage operator with 4,000+ colleagues and a fleet of 446 tugboats across 35+ countries, organised into four regions: Australia, AMEA, Europe and Americas. We provide sustainable marine services that make ports and terminals safer, more efficient and more climate friendly.

Svitzer is coming from a position of strength. We have deep technical expertise, a strong operational culture and colleagues who take pride in what they do. Our ambition is to remove the complexity we have built over time, strengthen collaboration and shape an organisation that can continuously adapt as we scale.

Our transformation is anchored in an ambition to make it easier to work, collaborate and create value for our customers - both at sea and ashore. We believe leadership behaviours and culture are the key drivers of this transformation.

The team you will join

Based in our Copenhagen office and reporting directly to the Chief People Officer, you will join our People & Culture team and work closely with leaders across Global Functions and our Regions, Communications, Strategy, and the Executive Leadership Team.

Our awesome team brings together Regions and CoEs (Rewards, Organisational Development, Learning and People Operational Excellence), to enable Svitzer's success by developing strong leaders, thriving people and by being a safe place to work. Our Global Centres of Excellence work closely with our Regional P&C teams around the world, to shape concepts and ensure new practices are anchored in reality – while committed to having fun along the way.

We enjoy working together and although priorities across Regions differ, we work from the same agenda. We are not afraid to challenge each other's points of view, and we believe the best solutions come from preparation, good conversations and a willingness to listen and learn.

Responsibilities

We have already started our transformation, and as true change takes time, this role is expected to:

• Build the leadership and culture enabling Svitzer's growth strategy
• Define how we develop our leaders to drive change as a constant, instead of through repeated transformations by embedding key leadership behaviors in our culture
• Develop and communicate a clear transformation narrative that aligns around the why, what and how of the journey.
• Assess the organisational impact of change across people, processes, structures and ways of working, and design interventions that are likely to make us successful in our pursuit.
• Lead the overall change approach in close partnership with Communications, P&C, and business leaders, ensuring consistent engagement and communication throughout the transformation.
• Partner with the PMO and workstream leads to ensure that change is well-integrated into planning and implementation.
• Monitor how change is adopted, identify barriers, and continuously adapt the change approach to strengthen engagement and stay on course throughout the transformation.
• Enable leaders to make governance work in practice by fostering alignment and cross-functional collaboration.
• Over time, continue the work to shape the organisational conditions which enable Svitzer's ambitious growth strategy to succeed, through adjusting organizational structures, developing critical capabilities and leaders who can implement and sustain change and drive performance

Who we are looking for

We are looking for an experienced organisational transformational leader who understands how leadership and culture are key in strategy delivery and transformation. As 80% of our people work in frontline positions, in the ports and on our vessels, you bring insights – and stories from your past experiences - of how to successfully drive organization and culture change, across frontline and office-based work environments as well as across geographies and cultures - and you understand the complexity it brings. In a few more details, we are looking for someone who brings:

• Significant experience with organisational transformation in international and operational business, driven by culture and leadership
• Good understanding of working in the intersection of office-based functions and frontline operations
• Deep understanding of operating models, organisational design, leadership development and culture change
• Ability to influence Executive Leadership teams
• Experience prioritising change initiative, and ensuring they result in successful impact.
• Strong stakeholder-management, facilitation and communication skills.
• Commercial mindset, sound judgement and the ability to make things simple.
• Persistency and patience
• Experience from working in an international environment
• Fluency in English, cross cultural understanding.

How to apply

To ensure a consistent and fair recruitment process, please submit your application via the “Apply” button on our Svitzer Careers page. Applications submitted outside the system cannot be considered.

Deadline

The application deadline is 31 August 2026. We review applications on an ongoing basis and may close the job advertisement earlier if we receive a strong field of qualified candidates.

Questions

To ensure a fair and consistent experience for all candidates, we are not able to respond to questions in advance of interviews. Relevant questions can be addressed during the interview process.

Building a Diverse Workplace

In Svitzer we value the diversity of our talent and will always strive to recruit the best person for the job – we value diversity in all its forms, including but not limited to gender, age, nationality, race, sexual orientation, disability, or religious beliefs. We are proud of our diversity and see it as a genuine source of strength for building high performing teams.

Don’t meet every single requirement? Studies have shown that members from some under-represented groups are less likely to apply for jobs if they don’t meet every single qualification. At Svitzer we are dedicated to building a diverse and inclusive workplace, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles, and we are excited about hearing from you!

How to Apply

To apply for this role, please click on the 'Apply Now' button and create a Candidate Home to manage your applications.