Interim Chief Executive Officer — Scale

A year that ends with a team, not a plan

By day ninety, the leadership structure for the next phase should be agreed, each executive's decision rights set and the way problems rise made clear. That is the foundation. Without it, every later decision is negotiated afresh, and the strongest personalities win by default.

Around month nine the structure should be appointed and operating. That means people in seats, not boxes on a chart, and every inherited commitment ruled on, kept, suspended or ended, so the new team does not spend its first year defending decisions it did not make.

By month 12 the leadership team should be running the business on the new structure, with the interim chief executive increasingly absent from the decisions that matter. Success looks like a team that would not notice much if the interim left a week early.

Authority to reshape the top of the business

The Interim Chief Executive Officer holds executive authority. They decide who across the business takes which decisions and what local leaders keep, and pick the measures that will steer investment, capacity and control. A proposal that leaves its cost or risk with nobody prepared to own it does not proceed, and investment is declined where uptake, dependencies or the downside go unaddressed. They approve the leadership structure and bring the Group Chief Executive Officer and operating leaders to agreement before money is spent.

In a family-owned hospitality business, leadership structure carries meanings that go beyond the organisation chart. Roles can embody loyalty, history and trust as well as capability. A good interim chief executive respects that without letting it decide the outcome.

A general manager who has rebuilt leadership teams

You will have been the senior executive of a business with $470 million or more in revenue, a team of 3,700 or more and operations in two countries. Digital transformation, professionalisation and buy-side M&A will count most, because each tends to require a leadership team built for what comes next rather than for what came before. A leadership structure is a strategy expressed in people, so strategy formation is wanted at level 4. At level 3 we want P&L ownership, a sound judgement of risk and command of operating cadence.

You can point to occasions when evidence, rather than seniority, decided who got people, money and leadership time. You can say where a local leader's discretion should hold and where a common rule should override it, and you put that line on paper. When something is still unknown, you tell the Group Chief Executive Officer what is missing and what you would do meanwhile, rather than asking for more time. You can hold that line with colleagues who outrank you in tenure, if not in title.

Meeting the people who will judge the structure

Your first meeting, in week 1, is with the Group Chief Executive Officer, by video and in confidence. In week 3 the Board Chair works the leadership question through with you. In week 5 you face, in person, executives drawn from each part of the business, some of whom may sit in the structure you design. The full board of directors sees you in week 7. You will have our feedback in writing within two working days of each meeting.