Interim Transformation Executive — Renewal

Calls that decide a portfolio's fate

Transformation in an asset manager tends to pull in two directions at once. Fee pressure argues for cutting platform cost; client and regulatory demands argue for investing in it. Most portfolios end up doing a little of both, everywhere, which is the most expensive way to do either. The decisions that matter for an Interim Transformation Executive are therefore choices about where not to spend. Which initiative should be stopped even though its sponsor is senior and its business case looks fine? Which shared cost, allocated by habit rather than use, should be charged to the teams that actually drive it? When is a value case strong enough to fund, and when does it merely look complete?

Stop rules are the instrument. Agreed before money is committed, they state what evidence would end an initiative and by when. They protect the organisation from sunk-cost reasoning, and they protect sponsors from being blamed for stopping work that was always meant to be tested. The executive's authority gives them force. You will define how portfolio decisions are made and what local managers may approve unaided, and choose the measures that steer spending, people and control. Each initiative goes on, is held or ends on your ruling; you will also stop any proposal that passes on cost or risk with nobody accountable, and decline investment cases that are vague about adoption, about what they depend on, or about the downside. Sign-off on the leadership structure and on how problems are raised is yours, as is settling conflicts with operating leaders ahead of any budget release.

Two years of stop rules in use

Inside the first ninety days, a standard for value cases and a set of stop rules should be agreed with the Regional President and applied to every initiative in the portfolio, with no exemptions for favoured projects. Around month nine, each initiative should have been reviewed against its own stop rule, and work that has been paused or ended should have released people and budget to the stronger cases. By month 24, the transformation portfolio should run on the agreed stop rules as normal practice, with value evidence and open decisions reported to the board.

The executive for the job

Your knowledge of funds and asset management comes from decisions with your name on them, including one unsupported programme you halted before it did harm. You can distinguish a local exception the business truly needs from one that has simply survived, and you can point to a popular initiative you closed, the evidence for closing it and the capacity that freed. Your career includes organisations of at least 800 people, operating in seven countries, with revenue of $555 million or more. Selection will weigh restructuring, professionalisation and cost transformation in your history. Strategy formation is wanted at level 4, with change adoption, PMO governance and value case at level 3. If you would let a commitment run on until each national head agreed to end it, or want influence but not 24 months of answering for it, the role is not for you.

Four meetings, from the Regional President to the directors

The process opens in week one with an introductory call by video, in confidence, with the Regional President. Week three belongs to the Risk Committee Chair, who tests how you would draft and enforce stop rules. Week five brings an in-person meeting with executives who each run a function, and week seven a closing session with the directors. You will have a response on each stage within four working days.