Interim Senior Vice President of Finance — Scale

Reporting built for the decision, not the deadline

Management reporting is usually judged by whether it is on time and whether it reconciles. Both are necessary and neither is enough. The test that matters is whether the numbers in front of a decision-maker are the right ones for the decision being made: the margin of the engagement type being priced, the true cost of a new service line, the cash profile of the contract about to be signed. When reporting is built around the close calendar rather than around decisions, finance loses its ability to challenge, because it cannot show anything the business does not already believe.

The Interim Senior Vice President of Finance will connect the two. In a private-equity-backed services business, decision-grade numbers are the basis of finance's credibility with owners and operators alike. You will carry executive authority to set how finance decisions are allocated and agree the thresholds local leaders hold, and to choose the evidence on which investment, resourcing and controls are governed. Each commitment continues, waits or ends on your call. Proposals that leave cost or risk unowned stop with you, and so does investment where adoption, operating dependency or the downside is left out. You will also approve the route by which finance decisions are escalated.

The skill underneath is making a call that can be undone on partial operating data, then firming it up as better numbers arrive. Finance rarely gets perfect data in time. A strong finance leader makes the call the data supports and says what would change it.

Decision-grade numbers by month 12

In the first ninety days, management reporting should be reviewed against the specific decisions finance must challenge, and the gaps, along with the people who own the underlying data, agreed. By month nine, decision-grade reporting should be in place for capital and investment cases, and finance challenge should be recorded before approval rather than reconstructed afterwards. By month 12, reporting quality and finance challenge should be part of the business's normal rhythm as it scales, with routes for issues to climb that the finance team can run without you.

A finance leader who stays after the decision

Your finance career includes businesses with at least $495 million in revenue, 1,800 or more people and two countries. You remain answerable after a decision is taken, including for the work of closing finance exceptions. The finance chief will weigh your experience of succession, joint ventures and professionalisation, and look for capital allocation at level 4, then risk judgement, controls and reporting, and FP&A forecasting at level 3. You say what is unresolved and what you would do about it in the same breath. Stopping a commitment does not, for you, depend on unanimous country-leader consent, and the result is yours for the full 12 months.

Meeting those who use the numbers

First comes a confidential conversation over video with the Group Chief Financial Officer, in week 1. Week three is with the Board Chair, on what decision-grade reporting means for a board. In week five executive leaders from each function, the people who consume your numbers, meet you in person, and the full board does the same in week 7. Each stage earns a response from us in writing within two working days.