Interim President, International Markets — Delivery (Media)

International markets as promises kept

International media businesses live on commitments: a release window agreed with a distributor, a localisation schedule, a marketing campaign timed to a premiere, a rights deal that expires on a fixed date. When one market misses, the cost travels to the others. The Interim President, International Markets, who answers to the Board Chair, is there to make delivery across those markets dependable for 12 months. Dependable means that what a market commits to, it delivers, and that what it cannot deliver is known early enough to act on.

Authority across markets

This is an interim executive seat with real authority. The President sets the international thresholds that market leaders retain and determines the evidence that governs market investment, delivery capacity and controls. They work through the commitments already in flight and decide which go on and which stop. They halt plans that move a cost or a risk onto others when nobody answerable has accepted it, and refuse investment cases that skip adoption by audiences and partners, dependencies or the downside. They approve who leads each market and how issues rise, settle conflicts with operating leaders while budgets are still open, and agree with the board how often, and in what form, it hears about delivery against plan, missed commitments and choices still pending. A recurring judgement will be when holding something back is a better call than delivering it late in one market and early in another.

Twelve months, market by market

Agreement between the Board Chair and the President should come within the first ninety days: on the international division of decisions, on a delivery baseline every market accepts, and on the thresholds market leaders keep. Around month nine, the delivery commitments in each international market should have been reviewed, and any without a clear owner paused or ended. By month 12, international delivery should run on a common rhythm, with market leaders answering for their own commitments.

A general manager who has delivered across borders

You have run media and entertainment businesses where a missed date cost real money, in groups that turned over $770 million or more and employed 2,000 or more people across six or more countries. Integration, platform pivot and professionalisation are the experiences we will explore, platform pivot especially, given how much of the industry's delivery now runs through direct-to-consumer and partner platforms. Strategy formation is weighed at level 4, and three others at level 3: P&L ownership, setting the operating cadence and risk judgement. Your record should show data that moved people, capital or management attention to a different place. We will ask you to describe a well-supported commitment you brought to an end, what the evidence showed and what that freed up.

How the panel will get to know you

In week one the Board Chair talks with you one to one over video. In week three, the Regional President examines with you how a delivery baseline could hold across very different markets. In the fifth week you meet a panel of executives from each function in person, and in week seven the full board. Each stage brings a written reply inside five working days.