Interim Chief Supply Chain and Operations Officer — Scale-Up

Two tests for every activity

Supply chains accumulate work. A check added after an incident stays long after the risk has passed; a report built for one manager outlives the manager; a handling step survives because nobody remembers why it started. This interim officer will put two tests to that work. Does it add value a customer would recognise, in availability, accuracy or speed? Does it add control value, protecting quality, safety, compliance or stewardship of resources? Work that passes neither should stop, and the capacity it consumed should go somewhere better.

Authority to remove, not just recommend

The officer holds executive authority under the Country Managing Director. That includes setting how supply-chain decisions are made and the thresholds kept by local leaders, deciding what proof must support any call on spending, capacity or control, and ruling on which inherited commitments survive. A proposal that would shift cost or risk onto a team without its agreement will not go ahead. Investment cases will be declined where they ignore whether staff will take the change up, what it depends on or how it might fail.

Absorbing the friction of removal

Removing work from a live supply chain creates friction. The officer will settle disputes between the Country Managing Director and operating leaders, decide how the leadership is structured and the way a problem in one part of the chain reaches the people able to fix it, and set how frequently the board looks at progress and open decisions.

Eighteen months from review to scale

In its first ninety days the role should settle, with the Country Managing Director, how supply-chain decisions are made, and complete a review of activity against the two tests. Around month nine the activity that failed them should be on hold or gone, with the capacity redirected and a responsible leader for each change. By month 18 the supply chain should be scaling on work that adds customer or control value, with board reporting and successors established.

A record of restructuring with care

Supply chain or operations leadership in a business with revenue of $695 million or above and 2,000 people in seven countries, is the floor for this seat. Your experience of restructuring, integration and turnaround will be examined, and the question behind all three is the same: can you take work out without breaking what depends on it? Operating cadence is required at level 4. Operating model, network footprint, and quality and safety are each needed at level 3. You have put a disputed downside to a managing director without softening it, and you have refused funding where adoption and the downside went unexamined, then rebuilt the operations capacity to do it properly.

Applying the two tests in selection

Selection takes three weeks. It opens in week one, with the Country Managing Director on a confidential video link. In week two the Board Chair gives you a working case, a real decision to which you will apply the two tests. Week three is face to face with the Investment Committee. Our response in writing follows within three working days of each stage.