Interim President, International Markets — Integration (Banking)

The hard calls in shaping an international leadership structure

Leadership structures in international banking are rarely designed from a blank sheet. They accrete: a market added through acquisition keeps its own management, a product line reports to the centre, a country head gathers responsibilities because they happened to be there. Holding executive authority for 18 months under the Group Chief Executive Officer, the Interim President, International Markets, will set the structure for the next phase of ownership, and that means making several difficult calls.

The first is how much to centralise. Some decisions in banking must sit centrally, such as capital, risk appetite and conduct standards, while others are better made close to the customer. You will agree the international decision framework and the thresholds held by local leaders, and select the evidence that governs investment, capacity and controls across markets. The second is what to inherit. Each commitment will go ahead, be held or be stopped on your decision, and proposals that move cost or risk without someone answerable for it will be blocked. The third is what to fund: cases silent on take-up, dependencies or downside will be declined. The fourth is people. Signing off how leaders are organised and how issues escalate, and deciding how often progress, exceptions and open questions are reported, falls to you, and in the end it means deciding who leads what, and telling some capable people that the structure no longer has a place for their current role.

Eighteen months from proposal to a structure in place

By day ninety a leadership structure for international markets should be proposed, with decision thresholds agreed market by market. Around month nine integration of those markets into the structure should be under way, with escalation routes in use and exceptions owned. By month 18 the structure should be in place with successors named, so that the integration continues without the interim president.

An international banker with acquisition experience

International leadership in banking or financial services is expected, in a business with revenue of at least $590 million and 1,000 or more people across seven countries. Professionalisation, buy-side M&A and turnaround are the experiences sought, ideally with professionalisation carried through without the board's account drifting from the operating evidence. The capability profile is strategy formation at level 4, then level 3 in three areas: operating cadence, judging risk, and owning a P&L. Expect questions about a decision you kept reversible while the evidence was thin and then firmed up, and about whether you can accept that your first visible win here may be something halted rather than launched, defended with evidence.

Three weeks from first call to investment committee

In week one the Group Chief Executive Officer holds a first conversation, in confidence and by video, with you; the Audit Committee Chair puts a working case in front of you in the second; and the investment committee meets you in person in the third. You will have the outcome of each, in writing, inside four working days.