CEO (m/f/d)

RUCO AG - Swiss family business on a profitable growth course

RUCO AG, headquartered in Glattbrugg, is a traditional Swiss family business that, in the year 2027, can look back on a history of over 110 years. Around 150 employees develop, produce, and distribute high-quality paints and varnishes for professional users. With its own development laboratory, production in Switzerland, a nationwide field service, and around ten points of sale, RUCO combines industrial and chemical-technological competence with extraordinary customer and market proximity. "Made in Switzerland" quality, personal relationships, reliability, and respectful interaction have characterized the company for generations.

As part of a long-term planned succession, we are looking for an entrepreneurial, down-to-earth, and implementation-strong personality as CEO. In this key position, you bear overall responsibility for the strategic, operational, and economic further development of RUCO AG. Your central task is to consistently translate the developed corporate strategy into measurable results and to increase profitability sustainably. You will specifically develop the market position, professionalize sales and sales management, and ensure systematic processing of the relevant customer and market segments. In doing so, you will maintain the strong customer proximity, technical competence, and personal availability through which RUCO differentiates itself in competition. You understand the needs of professional users, specialist retailers, and manufacturing companies and recognize opportunities from which sustainable growth can be developed.

At the same time, you will modernize the organization and further develop structures as well as central business processes. You will drive digitalization with moderation and consistency, increase the speed of implementation, and create clear responsibilities. Together with the executive management, you will promote the transition to a modern leadership culture based on trust, individual responsibility, commitment, and cooperation. You provide orientation, make clear decisions, and create an environment in which employees can take responsibility and develop their potential.

As CEO, you will work closely and trustfully with the Board of Directors as well as the owner families involved in the company. You understand the special dynamics of a family business, respect its history, identity, and values, and simultaneously create space for necessary changes. Personal proximity to employees, customers, and market partners is important to you. You lead visibly, accessibly, and authentically, without losing yourself in the operational day-to-day business.

For this demanding task, you have several years of experience in general management or a comparable leadership function with comprehensive responsibility for results and P&L. You have already demonstrably increased profitability, enabled growth, further developed sales organizations, and successfully implemented change processes. Ideally, you are familiar with the environment of a manufacturing Swiss SME and have experience in the construction trade, the professional craftsman environment, or the paint, varnish, or building materials industry. High business competence and a strong understanding of the market, sales, and customer needs are required. Very good German skills are required; French skills are an advantage.

Personally, you convince through entrepreneurial thinking, decisiveness, and natural authority. You combine strategic foresight with pragmatism and consistent implementation. As an approachable and credible leader, you win people over for common goals, also address difficult topics openly, and remain respectful and solution-oriented. You appreciate what has been achieved and the grown culture, but have the courage and perseverance to anchor necessary changes sustainably.

You can expect an exceptionally attractive entrepreneurial task with great creative freedom, high-quality products, loyal customers, own development and production, as well as long-term oriented ownership. You will have the chance to preserve what has proven itself, set new impulses, and sustainably shape the next development phase of RUCO AG.

Do you feel addressed by this entrepreneurial challenge? Then Bea Gerber and Daniel Burkhalter, Managing Partners of swisselect ag, look forward to receiving your complete application documents. Absolute discretion is, of course, guaranteed.