Interim Country Managing Director — Delivery Recovery

Not a programme office with a grander title

Delivery programmes attract two kinds of interim leader. One reports on the plan; the other runs the country. This appointment is firmly the second. The Interim Country Managing Director holds executive authority for the 24 months of the programme and answers to the Investment Committee for its outcome, not for the polish of its status reports. Nor is it a caretaker post that keeps things steady while someone else makes the decisions: inside the frame the committee has set, the country's operating calls belong to this person.

Putting delivery back on solid ground

Most of the work is deciding. The managing director sets out which decisions sit with the country leadership and which limits local managers keep, then chooses the evidence that will govern how money, people and capacity are allocated. That second choice matters more than it sounds. A delivery programme measured on activity will nearly always look healthy; one measured on what clients have actually received tells the truth much sooner.

From there the authority is concrete. Each inherited delivery commitment is the managing director's to continue, suspend or wind down, and no proposal goes ahead that parks its expense or exposure with a manager who never signed up for it. Investment is turned down when the case says nothing about take-up, about what else it depends on, or about the consequences if it falls short. The managing director settles who sits in the leadership team and decides how often the committee hears about progress, missed milestones and unresolved calls, so that a slipping commitment is discussed while there is still time to act on it.

A leader who knows which local differences are worth keeping

Your career has taken you across seven or more countries, running businesses with revenue of $365 million or above and at least 1,300 people. You can tell a country practice that clients actually depend on from one that lingers only because nobody has questioned it, and you write that boundary down so that others can apply it after you have gone.

The Investment Committee will look hard at three kinds of experience. Scale-up, because that is where you learn how delivery breaks when volume outruns process. M&A buy-side, because it teaches you to keep an operation serving clients while its authority changes underneath it. And succession, because a recovery that rests on one person has not really recovered. Strategy formation should sit at level 4; one step down, at level 3, the committee wants P&L ownership, operating cadence and sound risk judgement. You can bring the committee a gap you have not yet closed and still keep the programme moving.

Twenty-four months, and how they begin

The first ninety days rebase the programme: decision thresholds agreed, a reporting rhythm in place, and one accountable person against every workstream. By around month nine the stalled commitments should have been resolved one way or the other, either recovered against the agreed evidence or formally paused, with escalations settled before resources move. By month 24 the programme should be closed out under a settled country leadership structure, with every obligation kept along the way.

Selection starts in week one, when the Investment Committee talks with you confidentially over video. By the third week you will sit down with the Risk Committee Chair to explore how you would handle a commitment that has stalled. In week five a panel of executives who each run a different function meets you in person and tests your thinking against operating detail; the full board of directors meets you in week seven. We aim to tell you where you stand within four working days of each stage.