Interim Regional Finance and Capital Director — Renewal

Whose number is it?

A forecast is only useful if someone stands behind it. In many regional finance functions the numbers are assembled by finance from inputs that operating teams submit and then disown, so when the forecast misses, nobody is surprised and nobody is responsible. This appointment exists to change that, giving every material forecast line a clear owner who understands the drivers and answers for the variance. It is an interim executive role under the Group Chief Financial Officer, and it carries the authority to make the change rather than recommend it.

That authority is broad. You will draw the decision rights in regional finance, including the thresholds local leaders keep, and settle which forecast and capital figures decide investment, capacity and control across countries. You rule on whether each inherited commitment continues, pauses or ends, and you can refuse any scheme that parks a cost or exposure with a party that never consented to it. You can decline investment cases that leave out take-up, operating dependencies or the downside. Regional finance roles and the path a large variance takes upward need your approval, and you resolve disagreements with the engineering, regulatory and commercial heads before funds are committed and set the rhythm on which the board sees forecast progress, exceptions and unresolved choices.

Forecast ownership in energy and utility services has its own texture. Many drivers, from asset performance to regulatory decisions to project timing, sit with engineering, regulatory and commercial teams rather than with finance. A good finance director builds the forecast around those owners and makes the assumptions explicit, so that a miss can be traced to a cause instead of argued about.

You will have worked in a business with at least $670 million in revenue and 1,500 people across five countries, and you know energy and utility services from decisions that were yours, among them a commitment without backing that you halted before it reached the business. Your forecast baselines have held up when a group chief financial officer and the people running regulated assets and energy portfolios pushed back on them. The Group Chief Financial Officer will examine your experience of geographic expansion, professionalisation and turnaround, and your capital allocation at level 4, with level 3 sought in FP&A forecasting, in controls and reporting, and in risk judgement. You know when local judgement should stay and when it should go, and you write the boundary down. A capital commitment can be stopped without every country signing off, and the result across 18 months is yours to own.

How the forecast changes hands over eighteen months

By the end of the first ninety days each regional forecast line should have an accountable owner, with the forecast calendar and local thresholds settled with the Group Chief Financial Officer. Around month nine regional forecasts should be reviewed against actuals on a fixed rhythm, and capital commitments should have been taken forward, held or closed on that evidence. By month 18 forecast ownership should be part of how the region works, with clear routes for escalating capital questions and a finance bench able to sustain it.

A short run to the executive committee

The process is short. You speak with the Group Chief Financial Officer by video, in confidence, during week 1, about how you would assign forecast ownership. The Board Chair gives you a live case to work through in week two. Week three brings the executive committee to meet you in person. Expect a written note on each stage within four working days.