Advisory Chair — Operating Model and Recovery (Technology)

Two years, judged by what survives change

The real test of this appointment arrives after it ends. The measure of success is that the decision rights still hold when the people who wrote them have moved on.

Across the first ninety days the adviser should put recommended decision rights and local thresholds to the chief executive, and test them against the leadership changes most likely to come. The testing matters: a set of decision rights that works only for the current team is a description of that team, not a design. Around month nine, the chief executive should be applying those rights to real calls on whether to keep, pause or stop commitments, with the adviser's challenge on record so the reasoning can be revisited later. When month 24 arrives, the decision rights should have held through market and leadership change, and escalation should work without the adviser's involvement.

The adviser's standing with the chief executive

This is an advisory seat. The chief executive decides; the Advisory Chair offers counsel, challenges and helps. You will help the chief executive agree who decides what, and how much room local leaders keep, and counsel on the proof a funding, capacity or control decision should require. You will advise on which commitments should carry on and which should pause or stop, and question any plan that puts cost or risk somewhere with nobody owning it, as well as investment cases that are thin on adoption, on what they depend on, or on the downside. Your counsel will also cover who leads and how problems are raised, and you will help the chief executive and operating leaders work through disagreements while budgets and people are still uncommitted.

On a venture-backed technology platform, the useful adviser is the one who can sit between ambition and evidence. Growth plans move quickly, often faster than the evidence behind them. An Advisory Chair with general-management depth helps a chief executive make reversible decisions early and harden them as the facts improve.

An operator who builds for succession

You have run general management in businesses that reached $315 million in revenue and 600 people across two or more countries, and you can tell necessary local judgement from variation that survives on habit. Experience of value creation, professionalisation and buy-side M&A is examined, with strategy formation at level 4 and, at level 3, running a P&L, keeping an operating cadence and judging risk. You grow successors while the model shifts, so the decision rights keep working after you step away. You can name what remains uncertain to the chief executive and still offer a clear view, you would recommend a stop even with a country head opposed, and you expect to stand behind your advice for the full two years.

How the Group Chief Executive Officer will get to know you

Your first conversation is with the Group Chief Executive Officer, by video and in confidence, as week one gets under way. The Board Chair works through the mandate with you in the third week. Week five is given to an in-person meeting with executive leaders drawn from each function, and in the seventh week you meet the full board of directors. Two working days after each stage, at the latest, you will have our view in writing.