Interim Managing Director — Customer Economics Reset

Commercial leadership at the customer-economics boundary

Explain how you distinguished an investment in a developing relationship from a persistent loss without a credible recovery path. Strong candidates can interpret cost-to-serve information critically and recognise when allocations distort the decision. A purely sales-focused record without operating accountability is unlikely to provide the breadth required.

Choose the growth the business should serve

Lead a commercial and operating reset that examines customer economics beyond headline revenue. The mandate is to identify where the business earns a sustainable return after delivery effort, service exceptions, credit exposure and management attention are considered. The appointee will turn that analysis into executable decisions about offers, pricing and service commitments.

Start with a representative set of customer relationships. Reconcile reported margin with the resources consumed across sales, operations and support. Examine whether apparent strategic importance is supported by a credible route to future value or simply used to excuse recurring losses.

Change the offer, control the exceptions and sustain contribution

Direct the redesign of unprofitable or unreliable service arrangements. Options may include clearer scope, revised pricing, different delivery methods or a controlled withdrawal from commitments that cannot be supported economically. Avoid a pricing intervention that leaves the original operating inefficiency untouched.

Set authority for commercial exceptions and require time-limited review of concessions. Work with customer-facing leaders to explain changes and negotiate within agreed boundaries. Protect relationships with a viable long-term case while challenging the assumption that every retained account represents a good outcome.

Establish a review linking customer contribution, service performance and cash collection. Ensure that commercial leaders understand the operating capacity they commit and that operations can identify recurring sources of excess effort. The purpose is timely decision-making, not a more elaborate profitability report.

The managing director owns implementation within delegated commercial and financial authority. Material changes to business scope remain subject to the appropriate approval. Handover should include revised offers, explicit exception rules and evidence that teams apply them consistently. Success is better economic quality of the customer portfolio with a service proposition the business can deliver reliably.