Interim Chief Growth and Partnerships Officer — Pricing and Channel Recovery

Who is allowed to set a price

In telecommunications and technology, pricing authority leaks. A discount granted to win one deal becomes the reference for the next; a partner term agreed in one market is quoted in another. Over time nobody can say with confidence who approved what, or whether it paid. The Interim Chief Growth and Partnerships Officer is appointed, reporting to the Board Commercial Committee, to make that authority clear again and to keep it clear for 24 months.

Authority the seat carries

The interim seat is executive. You will set the commercial thresholds, including the pricing and channel decisions that stay with local leaders, and decide what a request for commercial budget, sales capacity or a waiver of pricing controls must prove in either country. Inherited commercial commitments, partner agreements among them, continue only with your confirmation. You can stop a deal structure that parks margin risk with a team that never accepted it, and decline investment that cannot show customers will take it up, which partners or systems it needs, or how large the downside could be. You approve how commercial leadership is organised and how disputes rise, and when the committee and the market leaders disagree, you settle it.

Partners are a channel, and a cost

Channel partners extend reach, but every partner arrangement also carries margin, service obligations and sometimes exclusivity. A strong growth officer values each partnership as a commercial decision with a measurable return, not as a relationship to be preserved for its own sake, and is prepared to renegotiate or close arrangements that no longer earn their place.

Milestones across the two years

Ninety days in, a pricing and channel authority map should be agreed with the Board Commercial Committee, setting which discounts and partner terms need central approval. Around month nine pricing and partner exceptions should be reviewed against that map, and channel arrangements nobody answers for renegotiated or closed. By month 24 pricing and channel governance should be embedded across the markets, partnership value evidenced, and local leaders deciding confidently within agreed thresholds.

The growth leader we need

You can separate necessary local judgement from variation protected by habit. The businesses you worked in turned over $800 million or more, employed 2,000 or more and traded in two countries at least. The committee weighs integration, succession and scale-up. Commercial economics at level 4 is the defining capability; at level 3 the committee expects stakeholder and board management, channel partnerships and revenue architecture. You have committed to a reversible call on partial evidence and firmed it up as the facts came in, and you grow your own successors along the way. Someone who treats every partner relationship as untouchable will find the 24 months uncomfortable.

Pricing evidence under examination

Week one is a confidential conversation over video with the Board Commercial Committee. Week three is a working session with the Audit Committee Chair on how pricing exceptions would be evidenced. Week five is a round-table of executives, in person, who each run one of the company's functions, and week seven a closing discussion with the board's directors. Every stage is followed by a written reply within 3 working days.