Redrawing senior leadership geography: Poland’s next step

Poland earned its reputation as a delivery powerhouse. Boards are increasingly asking a different question: it’s no longer whether Poland can deliver, but whether it can host senior decision-making. From regional CFOs to cross-regional functional leaders, feasibility assessments around relocating senior mandates to Poland are becoming part of mainstream strategic planning.

For more than two decades, Poland has played a defining role in the European and global operating models of multinational organisations. Two structural forces shaped that position.

The first was scale. As the largest economy and consumer market in Central and Eastern Europe, Poland became the natural anchor for regional leadership. Country heads, CEE managing directors and regional commercial leaders were often based in Warsaw because it made strategic sense. Smaller neighbouring markets could be coordinated from here with operational and commercial efficiency.

The second was the ability to build and scale capability – enabled by access to highly educated talent, multilingual professionals, a strong delivery mindset and a persistent drive for advancement. The expansion of shared services and later global business services (GBS) helped build one of the most mature business services ecosystems worldwide. According to the latest Deloitte Global Business Services Survey (2025), Poland remains among the leading global locations for capability development, with organisations increasingly locating digital and next-generation functions here.

According to ABSL’s latest data, Poland now hosts over 2,000 business services centres employing almost half a million professionals. More importantly, 55% of roles are classified as knowledge-intensive, defined as functions where onboarding takes six months or more. This is no longer transactional support. It is work requiring judgment, technical depth and cross-functional coordination.

Over time, these centres evolved from process execution to end-to-end ownership of increasingly complex functions: advanced analytics, financial planning, cybersecurity, procurement transformation, ESG reporting and digital operations, to name a few.

This ecosystem has produced a generation of leaders accustomed to managing scale, complexity and cross-border accountability. We are now witnessing the next step.

From operational hubs to global roles
The shift is no longer about what Poland can execute; it is about what Poland can own.

EMEA tax directors. Regional CFOs. Heads of treasury. Global procurement VPs. EMEA supply chain directors. Global process owners. Transformation leads. Senior VPs in finance, technology and operations with cross-regional accountability.

These are no longer theoretical examples. Organisations are increasingly assessing Poland as a viable location for such mandates.

This development is reflected in market research. In a recent KPMG study on Poland’s GBS landscape, 60% of surveyed centres reported a strong contribution to global or regional strategic decision-making, while 20% described themselves as fully integrated strategic hubs. Around one third indicated that their location is already recognised as a potential base for C-level or enterprise-wide functions, with a further majority seeing such potential under defined conditions.

Which leads to a natural question: why would organisations relocate higher mandates to Poland?

The answer lies in structural logic rather than fashion. Two decades of operating model evolution have created leaders who understand enterprise governance, global accountability and cross-border complexity. The density of finance, technology and operational talent reduces succession risk at senior levels. And in an environment where boards scrutinise cost structures carefully, Poland represents a rational rebalancing of leadership geography – aligning strategic decision-making with operational scale, talent depth and a more balanced cost-to-impact structure. In that context, relocating senior mandates is less a bold experiment and more a rational progression.

The conversation inside boardrooms is shifting. The question is no longer “Can Poland deliver?” but increasingly “Can Poland host decision-rights?”

The leadership evolution: from directness to influence
Capability alone, however, is not enough. Leadership maturity matters. Polish executives have long been recognised for resilience, analytical rigour and execution focus. In the early years of shared-services growth, these qualities were decisive. Speed, learning agility and operational discipline were the competitive advantage.

Operating at regional and global level requires something additional.

Based on numerous conversations I had over recent years with senior leaders working in EMEA and global mandates – both those based in Poland and those who built their careers abroad – one recurring theme emerges. The transition from operational excellence to enterprise leadership is less about technical skill and more about influence.

Influencing without formal authority; navigating matrix politics; framing messages for different stakeholder groups; building coalitions across geographies; balancing directness with diplomacy – these all call for judgment and nuance.

Poles are still developing this capability at scale – but they are doing it fast. Exposure to global governance environments combined with increased mobility of Polish executives into director, VP, senior VP and C-suite minus-one roles across Europe and beyond, is accelerating this learning curve.

What began as operational maturity is evolving into stakeholder fluency.

A two-way flow of experience
Another dynamic strengthens this transformation. Many Polish professionals over the past decades have built significant international leadership careers, progressing into senior director, VP and executive roles across Europe and beyond. Today, a noticeable share of that cohort is returning — or operating globally while remaining based in Poland.

Simultaneously, leaders who developed within or alongside Poland’s shared-services centres and global business services ecosystem are stepping into broader enterprise mandates without relocating.

This creates a powerful reinforcement effect. International exposure strengthens domestic leadership capability. Domestic scale strengthens global credibility.

In my own work, an increasing share of assignments now involves structured feasibility studies: mapping the availability of managing director, senior VP, VP and director-level competencies in Poland across finance, technology, procurement, supply chain, transformation and other areas. Organisations want evidence before relocating mandates. They want to understand whether enterprise-level leadership capacity already exists locally.

The findings are often stronger than expected.

There’s an abundance of leaders in Poland with the technical depth, governance exposure and cross-regional experience required for enterprise roles. The question is no longer whether the capability exists, but whether organisations are ready to allocate decision rights accordingly.

Beyond multinationals
This shift has implications beyond foreign-owned corporations.

Poland’s own large organisations and growth-oriented companies are expanding internationally. As they do so, they face challenges familiar to any scaling enterprise: governance design, financial discipline, cross-border integration, investor reporting and global talent competition.

The presence in Poland of leaders who have operated as EMEA tax directors, regional CFOs or global procurement heads provides access to lived experience in scaling complexity.

The opportunity is to combine that experience with Poland’s entrepreneurial energy. Corporate discipline without suffocating growth. Governance without bureaucracy. Strategic alignment without losing speed.

The next chapter
Shared services and GBS were the foundation. Poland’s position as the largest CEE market created regional leadership density. Knowledge-intensive work built functional credibility. International exposure is strengthening stakeholder capability.

The next chapter is about enterprise ownership. Poland isn’t merely a location where strategies are implemented. Increasingly, it’s a place where they are and where they can be shaped. For boards reassessing European and global operating models, this distinction matters.

The infrastructure is already in place. The leadership capability exists in Poland. What remains is for organisations to entrust it with broader decision-making mandates.