Interim Chief Integration Officer — Post-Deal Integration

You have been through a separation before

A carve-out, a joint venture and a turnaround should all sit in your past, and each should have taught you that what a board is told about a deal and what operations experience of it will separate unless someone holds them together. You did that in businesses with at least $395 million of revenue and 400 people, spread over three or more countries. Your baselines held when the Regional President questioned them and when the investment, distribution and fiduciary specialists closest to the work questioned them harder.

The appointment draws most heavily on strategy formation at level 4. At level 3 the appointment expects PMO governance, change adoption and a sound value case. In practice that means you can tell an integration benefit that exists in a spreadsheet from one that exists in a reconciled fund accounting record or a client servicing log, and you will not report the first as if it were the second.

The calls an integration chief makes

Reporting to the Regional President, the Interim Chief Integration Officer holds executive authority for 24 months. You will agree how integration decisions are made and how much a local head can sign off alone. You will decide what proof a request for money, staff or a control change must carry; you will rule whether each integration commitment proceeds, waits or closes; and you will block any plan that leaves a fund, desk or service team carrying exposure it never accepted. Investment cases are declined when they cannot say which teams will take the change up, what it leans on, or how it could go wrong. The leadership structure needs your approval; disputes with the heads of investment, distribution and servicing are yours to settle, and you decide how and how often the board sees what has fallen behind and what remains unresolved.

In a family-owned firm, integration also touches stewardship. Useful controls must survive the combination, the cost of each exception must be visible, and the operating bench should be stronger when you leave than when you arrive.

Two years, read at three points

Within the first ninety days the Regional President and operating leaders should share one benefit baseline, and every integration exception should have someone accountable for it. Around month nine each claimed benefit should be traceable to operating evidence, and commitments unable to show that people are actually using what was built should be paused or closed. By month 24 the benefits should be visible in ordinary operations rather than in programme reports, and the combined leadership team should be running its own structure and its own route for raising problems.

Meeting the people who will test you

The Regional President opens the process during the first week, over a private video call, asking what you would need to see before believing a reported benefit. In the third week the Risk Committee Chair takes you through integration risk and controls as a practical exercise. Week five brings a panel of executives, each responsible for a different function, around one table; week seven is the whole board. Expect our written view within four working days of every stage.

If halting a commitment would, for you, require every market head to agree first, or if you want a say over the integration without owning its result for the full 24 months, look elsewhere.