You are Mateo Salinas-Quintanar, 51, brand-new CEO of Aceros del Catatumbo SAS, a 380-person specialty-steel processor in San Nicolás de los Garza, Monterrey. The previous CEO, your cousin's father-in-law, was asked to resign by the board four weeks ago.
The situation
Aceros del Catatumbo serves tier-2 automotive OEM customers across northern Mexico — Stellantis-Saltillo, Kia-Pesquería, John Deere-Monterrey. Revenue MXN 1.42B last year. The plant is profitable on paper. But it has missed delivery dates on the last six monthly Stellantis review cycles, lost the Kia Q4 RFP it should have won, and is on a formal probation letter from John Deere's supplier-management office. The board fired the CEO on culture grounds — not on the numbers, but on the way the firm now works.
Your first four weeks have been listening. What you have heard is consistent: a culture of blame between Plant Operations and Comercial, a six-layer hierarchy where no one below the director level commits to anything in writing, a Monday Operations Committee where the same five problems are surfaced and never closed, and a quiet exodus of mid-level talent — fifteen managers gone in the last twelve months, all to local competitors. The plant manager and the comercial director have not spoken directly in six months; they communicate through the CFO, who tells each one a slightly different story. The board wants your culture-change plan in twenty-one days.