Interim Country Head of Finance — Delivery

Twelve months tested against the bad year

The work of the year is organised around a single discipline: every commitment should be able to survive the downside case, or it should be clear who has chosen to carry the risk that it will not. By day ninety, you and the Group Chief Financial Officer should have agreed the downside case itself, the close calendar and the rules for country finance decisions. A downside case is only useful if the business believes it, so this agreement matters more than its precision. By around month nine, every material country commitment should have been tested against that case and given a verdict on the evidence, kept, held or ended. By month 12, country commitments should be funded only where they are affordable under the downside, with any exception owned by someone who answers for it and reported to the board.

The authority that makes the test bite

A downside test without authority behind it is an analysis that gets filed. This appointment carries executive authority. The rules for country finance decisions are yours to set, including what local managers may approve unaided, along with the measures that steer capital, people and control. Under the downside case, each commitment gets your ruling: continue, hold or stop. Proposals that leave cost or risk unowned will stop with you, and investment that ignores who must adopt it or what it leans on will be turned down. The country finance leadership structure and the way problems are raised will need your approval, and disputes with operating leaders will be settled by you before any money is committed.

The subtler judgement is about valuation and liquidity. In funds and asset management, a downside case is only as good as the assumptions about how assets would be valued, and how quickly they could be realised, under stress. Applying those assumptions consistently across teams, rather than accepting the most optimistic view each team prefers, is where a country head of finance earns respect or loses it.

The finance head who fits

In funds and asset management you have taken finance decisions where waiting had a price you could count, and you have laid a contested downside to a group finance chief without softening the consequence. The organisations you have served were no smaller than three countries, 1,200 people and $920 million in revenue. You can tell where local judgement earns its keep and where it should go, and you write that boundary down so others can apply it.

Selection will examine your ESG transition, platform pivot and professionalisation experience. Capital allocation is sought at level 4, and risk judgement, FP&A forecasting, and controls and reporting at level 3 each. If you would need country leaders to agree unanimously before you could stop a commitment, or want the influence without twelve months of accountability, it is the wrong seat.

How the selection runs

The process begins in week one, when the Group Chief Financial Officer talks with you over a confidential video link. In week three the Regional President works with you on how a downside case would be applied to live commitments. In week five, a panel of executives, one per function, meets you face to face; week seven is a final session with the directors. A verdict on each stage follows within five working days.