Interim Chief Supply Chain and Operations Officer — Controls

Reliability as the condition for growth

Volume is the most tempting answer to almost any operating problem. More throughput spreads fixed cost, fills capacity and pleases the commercial side of the business. Added to an operation that is not yet reliable, it does the opposite: every weakness is multiplied, every exception arrives faster, and the cost of putting things right rises with each additional unit shipped. The interim supply chain and operations chief is appointed on a simple principle: reliability first, volume after. The officer reports to the Board Operations Committee and holds executive authority to apply that principle across supply chain and operations.

Applying it means deciding who decides. The officer sets how supply chain and operations decisions are made, including how much latitude local leaders keep, and decides what reliability evidence must sit behind any call on spending, capacity or control. Inherited commitments will be judged on whether they help or hinder reliability, and some will be held or ended. Proposals that dump cost or risk on another part of the operation without its agreement will be stopped, and investment will be declined where the case leaves out how the change will be adopted, which systems or suppliers it needs or what a failure would cost. The officer approves the leadership structure, sets the trigger points at which a control failure must be raised, and resolves conflicts between the Board Operations Committee and operating leaders before capacity is spent. Most importantly, the officer will agree the conditions under which further volume may be added, and hold to them when the pressure to add it early arrives.

The leader who does this well has usually been through a separation or a recovery and learned that reliability is built from discipline rather than heroics. You will have worked where revenue ran to $780 million or more, people to 2,500 and operations to two countries, with experience of a carve-out, succession and turnaround. The carve-out is especially relevant: standing up an operation on its own forces you to discover which controls were real and which were borrowed. Operating cadence is required at level 4; operating model, network footprint, and quality and safety are each required at level 3. On partial evidence you have made a call you could unwind and firmed it up as the data improved, and you can judge where local discretion should hold and where it must yield, writing the boundary down so others can apply it.

Eighteen months, volume held until it is earned

A reliability baseline, an accountable owner for each operational control and the conditions for adding volume should all be agreed with the Board Operations Committee during the first ninety days. By around month nine reliability and control exceptions should be closing to plan, with new volume held back until the agreed conditions are met. By month 18 operations should be reliable enough to take on added volume, with controls tested and the board receiving their results at fixed intervals.

Holding the line, and the route in

Candidates should be ready to set out an open reliability gap for the Board Operations Committee without hiding in caveats, and to stop a commitment before every country head has signed up to it. The process is short. In week one the Board Operations Committee meets you by confidential video. In week two you work through a case on operational controls with the Audit Committee Chair. By week three you are meeting directors of the board in person. Within three working days of each stage we will send you our response in writing.