Interim Regional President — Delivery Recovery (Consumer and Retail)

Two easy versions, neither wanted

There are two easy versions of this job, and neither is wanted. The first treats the next 12 months as a cash exercise: cut what can be cut, defer what can be deferred, and report a tidy number. The second treats it as a strategy exercise: protect every capability that might matter in five years and let the near term take care of itself. The Interim Regional President is appointed to hold both, deciding case by case which spending protects capacity the region will need and which simply consumes cash. That balance is a matter of judgement, and the seat carries executive authority, under the Investment Committee, to exercise it.

Drawing the line between cash and capacity

The president sets how regional decisions are made, naming the thresholds that stay in local hands, and chooses the evidence the region will rely on when spending, capacity and control are decided. Every inherited commitment will be ruled on twice over: does it pay its way in cash, and does it protect something the region will need later? Some will pass both tests, some neither. A proposal that lifts cost or risk off one team's books by placing it on another's will be stopped. Investment will be declined where the case cannot show that people will take the change up, which other work it leans on, and how bad the downside could be. The president approves the regional leadership structure and the threshold at which a market's problem becomes the region's, settles disputes between the Investment Committee and market leaders before cash or capacity is committed, and decides how regularly the board is shown progress and open decisions.

A president with seven countries of perspective

You will have led across seven countries, with responsibility for 2,400 people and revenue of at least $800 million, and can tell local judgement that a market needs from variation that persists because it has never been challenged. Your experience of geographic expansion, succession and professionalisation will be examined. Expansion is relevant because it is the clearest training in spending now for capacity later; succession because protected capacity is often people. Strategy formation is wanted at level 4, and level 3 in each of the supporting areas: P&L stewardship, operating cadence and risk judgement. In your past roles, evidence has moved people, money and management time from one place to another, and you have stayed with the consequences afterwards, down to the tedious work of closing exceptions.

Cash baseline, rulings, recovery

The president's first ninety days should produce agreement with the Investment Committee on how regional decisions are made, a cash baseline, and an explicit line between near-term cash and the strategic capacity the region will protect. Around month nine inherited regional commitments should have been ruled on against both measures, with a responsible leader for every exception. At month 12 the region should be delivering its recovery with that strategic capacity intact, and the board should be receiving the numbers at regular intervals.

The Investment Committee hears from you first, by confidential video early in week one, about how you would draw the line. Week three pairs you with the Audit Committee Chair on a working problem. In week five you are questioned in person by executives who lead the different functions, and the full board takes the last stage in the seventh week. Our written response to each stage arrives no more than three working days later.