You are Joaquim Vilarrasa-Estany, 49, CHRO at Vilanova-Costa, a €1.4B Iberian family-PE-owned consumer-goods group. The Board has given you ten weeks to design the next five years of leadership-bench investment for the top 200 directors. The cantera is the question; the philosophy is the answer.
The situation
Vilanova-Costa makes ambient and chilled food brands sold across Iberia and through eight LATAM joint ventures. €1.4B revenue, EBITDA margin 14.2%, 4,200 employees. The Costa family owns 51%; Iberian Growth Capital owns 35% and is preparing for a 2029 exit. The CEO, Magda Costa-Brunet (3rd-gen, age 47), has told the Board she will step back to Executive Chair within four years if the bench is ready.
You inherited a top-200 director cohort with three structural problems: average tenure is 13.6 years (low external diversity), only 27% of directors are female (against a 42% population in the company below director level), and only nine names are credibly "two roles away from CEO". L&D spend last year was €4.2M, mostly on individual coaching and short executive-education spots — high consumer satisfaction, no measurable bench impact. The Board has approved a €9M annual budget for the next five years. The how-to-spend-it is yours.