Interim Group Chief Strategy Officer — Integration

The decisions where a thesis meets reality

A deal thesis is written by people who will not run the combined business, and an integration plan is often written by people who did not write the thesis. Between the two sits the operating business, which has to keep serving clients the whole time. The Interim Group Chief Strategy Officer is appointed for 12 months, reporting to the Investment Committee, to hold those three things together, and the role turns on a series of judgement calls.

The first is fidelity to the thesis. Every integration decision either serves the reasons the deal was done or drifts from them. The strategy officer has to keep asking which, and to say so when an integration step is convenient but does nothing for the thesis.

The second is protecting continuity. Some integration moves, such as combining teams, systems or client coverage, can damage the very revenue that justified the deal. Knowing when to slow down, and being willing to pause a commitment that threatens operating continuity, is as important as pace.

The third is who decides. The officer sets which integration decisions the group takes and which limits are left with local leadership, and chooses the evidence on which spending, people and controls in the combined business will be judged. Without that, integration decisions get made by whoever is loudest.

The fourth is what to stop. The officer decides which commitments continue, wait or end, stops proposals whose expense or exposure would land on nobody in particular, and declines investment whose case says nothing useful about uptake, dependencies or what could go wrong. They shape the leadership and the escalation route, and arbitrate between the Investment Committee and operating leaders. This is executive authority, not advice.

Twelve months in three movements

The first ninety days should translate the deal thesis into an integration plan with safeguards for continuity, agreed decision rights and an accountable owner for each workstream. Around month nine integration commitments should be tested against the thesis, with any that threaten operating continuity paused or redesigned. By month 12 board reporting should link the thesis, integration progress and operating evidence in a single view, so directors can see whether the deal is delivering what it promised.

A strategist who has carried integrations to the end

Through a turnaround you kept what the board was told anchored to what operations showed, in a business with revenue of $920 million or above, 3,400 or more people and three or more countries. Your M&A buy-side experience matters most here, together with professionalisation. The committee expects strategy formation at level 4, and change adoption, value case discipline and PMO governance at level 3; integrations are lost as often in adoption as in the deal model. You bring on successors as the integration reshapes the business, so the outcome outlasts you, and you would end a commitment even with some country heads still opposed.

From the Investment Committee to the directors

The Investment Committee opens with a private video conversation during the first week. Week three is spent with the Risk Committee Chair on an integration problem. In week five a panel of executives, met in person,, each responsible for a different function, tests your integration thinking, and the directors together close the process in week seven. You will wait no more than four working days to hear how each stage went.