Interim President, International Markets — Value Agenda

The trade-offs on the president's desk

Most of the decisions this Interim President will take come down to one question asked in many forms: does this commitment earn its place now, or build something the business will need later, and can it afford both? A market leader asks to defer maintenance to protect this year's cash. Another wants to hire ahead of growth that has not yet arrived. A third proposes a project whose case looks strong on its own and weaker alongside everything else competing for the same money. None of these has a formula answer, and the international markets need a leader who will decide them consistently and record why.

The appointment carries interim executive authority, reporting to the Board Chair. You will draw the decision rights across international markets, including the thresholds kept by local leaders, and decide which cash and capacity numbers settle investment and control questions. You choose which inherited commitments go forward, wait or end, and stop proposals that pass on cost or risk without anyone accepting it. You can reject investment cases that omit take-up, operating dependency or the downside. You decide who leads each market under the new balance and how disputes travel upward, reconcile competing market claims before a single budget is fixed, and set the rhythm on which the board sees the balance, its exceptions and the choices still open.

Twelve months of a balance that holds

Each international market should leave the first ninety days with its cash and strategic-capacity priorities set, and with thresholds and accountable leaders agreed with the Board Chair. Around month nine international commitments should have been rebalanced between near-term cash and longer-term capacity, with each trade-off recorded so the board can see what was given up and why. By month 12 the international markets should be running to an agreed balance between cash and capacity, with country leaders accountable for holding it once the interim has gone.

Someone who has carried the consequences

Six countries, 600 people and $270 million or more in revenue: that is the least you should have led across. You have carried a succession whose effects were felt in the boardroom and in the field, and you have handed over authority in regulated assets and energy portfolios that had to keep running throughout. The Board Chair will probe succession, professionalisation and buy-side M&A in your past, and looks for strategy formation at level 4 plus level 3 in risk judgement, in P&L ownership and in operating cadence. Once the board has decided you remain accountable, including for closing the exceptions nobody else wants to close. A commitment can be stopped before the markets all agree, and the outcome for the full 12 months is yours to own.

One market, four perspectives

Expect to be asked, at every stage, how you would weigh cash against capacity in a specific market. The Board Chair asks first, privately and by video, at the start of week 1. The Regional President asks again during a working session in the third week. In week five the executive leaders of each function put the question in person, and the board, all its directors present, asks it last in week seven. Within five working days of each, we will write to you with the outcome.