The Client
STRABAG SE is one of Europe’s leading construction groups, employing more than 80,000 people and generating more than €20 billion in annual revenue. As part of its Strategy 2030, the Group is undertaking an ambitious transformation designed to strengthen its position as a technology- and data-driven organisation.
At the heart of this transformation is STRABAG Innovation & Digitalisation (SID), a central division comprising more than 425 experts across ten locations. SID is responsible for advancing innovation and digitalisation across the Group, with a focus on increasing productivity, optimising resources, minimising risk and enabling global real-time capabilities.
The transformation also brings operational IT—including infrastructure, ERP, hardware and support—together with STRABAG’s innovation and digitalisation capabilities. The result is an organisation of more than 800 employees spanning digitalisation, IT and innovation, with end-to-end responsibility for a technology environment that must balance the resilience of business-critical systems with the agility required to develop new digital services, automation, AI and Industrial IoT capabilities.
Digitalisation is therefore not viewed simply as a support function or cost centre. It is a strategic driver of value creation and an important contributor to STRABAG’s ambition of achieving a sustainable EBIT margin of more than 6% by 2030.
The Challenge
STRABAG engaged Boyden to identify its next Chief Digital Officer (CDO), a senior executive who would assume overall entrepreneurial responsibility for digitalisation, IT and innovation across the Group.
The mandate required an unusual combination of technology expertise, transformation experience and commercial leadership.
The successful candidate needed a proven track record of transforming complex, international organisations and physical value chains, with relevant experience potentially coming from construction or adjacent industries such as automotive, engineering, logistics, energy or telecommunications.
Beyond technology, STRABAG was looking for a true business transformer: an executive capable of integrating operational IT with innovation, developing a scalable technology and data architecture, advancing AI and digital business models, and demonstrating measurable return on investment across the technology landscape.
The leadership dimension was equally important. The successful candidate needed the credibility to bring stakeholders with different levels of digital maturity along on the transformation journey, while building an inclusive, empowering culture capable of attracting technology talent to a traditionally industrial environment.
With the role carrying potential for future progression to the holding board, entrepreneurial thinking, humility and a clear focus on value creation and P&L impact were essential.
The search was international, while requiring full professional fluency in German and English—making access to the right leadership networks across German-speaking Europe particularly important.
The Solution: Hunting in Packs Across Three Markets
Rather than approaching the assignment through a single office or market, Boyden deployed its “hunting in packs” model, bringing together colleagues from Vienna, Munich and Zurich as one integrated search team.
The pitch was led by Andreas Landgrebe, together with Andreas Hruschka in Austria, Dennis Grabherr in Germany and Patrick Naef in Switzerland. From the outset, the three offices approached the mandate collectively: pitching together, defining the target market together, generating candidate profiles across their respective networks and presenting candidates jointly to the client.
This gave STRABAG access to a significantly broader leadership market while maintaining a single, coordinated search strategy.
Each office contributed its local market knowledge, sector relationships and executive networks, enabling the team to look beyond conventional construction-sector candidates and identify transformational leaders across technology-intensive industries throughout the DACH region and beyond.
The collaborative approach was particularly valuable given the complexity of the mandate. Boyden could simultaneously explore executives with experience across industrial digitalisation, IT infrastructure, cloud architecture, AI, data, cybersecurity and transformation of physical value chains, while assessing candidates against a consistent set of leadership and cultural criteria.
The team focused on leaders who could:
- Integrate digitalisation, IT, data and innovation under a coherent Group-wide strategy.
- Transform complex legacy environments while protecting the resilience of business-critical systems.
- Connect technology investment directly to productivity, operational performance and EBIT impact.
- Lead diverse, international teams and build an empowering, inclusive culture.
- Influence stakeholders across a complex organisation and translate technological change into tangible business value.
- Challenge established processes and business models while demonstrating the humility and collaborative mindset required to bring the organisation with them.
By working as one cross-border team rather than three separate offices, Boyden combined the reach of multiple markets with the consistency of a single search process.
The Result
The integrated search identified 72 potential executives across the target market.
Following rigorous assessment, Boyden selected eight candidates for the longlist—seven women and one man. Four candidates progressed to the final shortlist, all of whom were women.
The search ultimately resulted in the successful appointment of a female executive to the role.
The assignment demonstrated the value of Boyden’s “hunting in packs” approach for complex international leadership mandates. By combining the market intelligence, networks and perspectives of the Vienna, Munich and Zurich offices from pitch through placement, Boyden was able to search a broader executive landscape while presenting STRABAG with one coordinated team, one assessment framework and one shared objective.
For a role tasked with connecting technology, people and business performance across borders, Boyden applied the same principle to the search itself: bringing the strongest expertise together, regardless of geography.
