Interim Senior Vice President, Operations — Value Agenda (Industrials)

Not a reorganisation chart

Operating model redesigns often end as new organisation charts with the same behaviour underneath. That is not what this appointment is for. The Interim Senior Vice President, Operations will redesign how operations actually work, starting from the evidence of where capacity constrains output and what service customers really receive, and the new model will be judged by whether decisions change, not by whether boxes move. The seat reports to the Country Managing Director and carries executive authority for 12 months.

The redesign and the decisions it needs

A capacity-and-service model asks different questions of a plant network. Where is the true bottleneck, and is it protected? Which plants hold capability that is duplicated elsewhere, and is that duplication insurance or inertia? Which service standards do customers actually pay for? The answers decide where authority should sit.

You will settle how operating decisions are taken and the size of decision a plant head can take without you, and set out what has to be shown before capital, line capacity or controls shift. Each commitment receives your verdict to keep going, wait or close. Plans that leave exposure with no one answerable are refused, and investment that ignores adoption, dependencies or the downside is declined. You will approve the leadership team and how problems escalate, and settle disputes between the Country Managing Director and plant heads before money is committed.

For a listed manufacturer, a credible redesign also has to be explicable to the market in terms of service and capacity, not just cost.

A culture reset on your record

You have led a culture reset that changed behaviour in the boardroom and on the shop floor, along with integration and professionalisation, in an organisation with at least $920 million in revenue and 2,400 people, operating across three or more countries. The seat calls for operating cadence at level 4, and operating model, network footprint and quality and safety at level 3. Before letting an exception continue, you have found out whose budget carries it. You can tell a country managing director what is still open without using that as a reason to wait, and you accept that your first visible result may be something ended rather than something started. Stopping a commitment will not depend on every country head's approval, and you will answer for all 12 months.

The year, and the route in

Within the first ninety days the scope of the redesign should be agreed with the Country Managing Director, built on capacity and service evidence from across the plants. Around month nine the redesigned model should be approved, with decision rights, capacity measures and service standards set for each operating unit. By month 12 the model should be operating, with capacity and service evidence reported through an agreed cadence.

The Country Managing Director begins with a private video conversation during week one. The Regional President works through a problem with you in week three, and in week five you meet, face to face, executives who each run a different function. Week seven ends the process, with the full board. We will give you our assessment in writing within five working days of each stage.