Interim Senior Vice President, Finance — Forecast Ownership

A finance leader who makes others own the number

Whoever takes this seat should have no wish to hold the forecast personally. They want every business unit leader to own their part of it, to be able to explain the variance when it moves, and to feel the consequence when it is wrong. Finance sets the calendar, the standards and the challenge; the forecast itself belongs to the people who run the business.

Seven countries or more, 3,600 people or more and revenue of $690 million or more: that is the minimum scale of the finance teams you have led. The Audit Committee Chair will weigh your experience of scale-up, succession and professionalisation, all of which change who is accountable for a number and how. Capital allocation is expected at level 4, with controls and reporting, risk judgement, and FP&A forecasting each at level 3. Your grasp of logistics and infrastructure services comes from calls that were yours alone, including a commitment without backing that you halted before it caused damage. You have carried a contested downside before an audit committee chair at full strength. You also grow successors while the forecasting model changes, so the result survives your departure.

Powers over the forecasting cycle

These are executive powers, not advisory ones. You will set the rules for forecasting decisions, including how far business unit heads may adjust their own numbers. You will decide which measures govern spending, capacity and the control framework. Inherited commitments stay, wait or go on your decision. You will stop proposals that slide cost or risk onto a unit that never accepted it, and turn down investment cases that ignore take-up, dependencies or downside. You will decide the finance leadership line-up, set the route by which issues rise, settle disputes with business unit heads, and decide how often the board sees forecast progress, variances and pending choices.

The hardest decision is usually about ownership itself. A business unit leader who has never owned a forecast will often prefer finance to keep it, so that a miss is finance's error. Moving the number back to the business requires patience, a common calendar, and a willingness to let a unit report a forecast finance privately doubts, then hold it to account for the result.

Twelve months of forecasting that holds

In the first ninety days, forecast ownership should be assigned to each business unit, with a common calendar and baseline agreed. Around month nine, the units should be forecasting to that shared calendar, with their own leaders explaining variances rather than finance doing it for them. By month 12, forecast ownership should be part of board reporting, and successors should be able to run the cycle unaided.

Meeting the audit committee and those who will test you

The Audit Committee Chair opens the process during the first week, privately and by video. Week three pairs you with the Risk Committee Chair to work a forecast variance through together. Executives from each function then question you face to face in week five, and the directors meet you together in week seven. Each stage brings a written answer from us within four working days.