Interim Regional Strategy Director — Integration

A strategist who also runs the agenda

Regional strategy roles inside multinational groups often end up as translation services, carrying the group's intent down and the markets' objections up. The Interim Regional Strategy Director is asked for more than that. Reporting to the Board Strategy Committee, you will assemble one strategy and transformation agenda for the markets in scope and then lead it, so that the region's priorities, investment and change programmes answer to a single account of what matters.

The interesting work lies in reconciling three clocks. Group planning moves annually, market trading moves weekly, and transformation programmes move at whatever pace their sponsors can defend. A good regional agenda puts all three on one page and forces the trade-offs between them to be made deliberately rather than by default.

What the director may settle for the region

The seat carries interim executive authority with real decision rights. You will set out which decisions belong to the region and which limits local leaders keep. You choose the evidence by which investment, capacity and control are governed across the markets. You rule on inherited commitments, keeping some, holding others and ending the rest, and you halt any plan that pushes cost or risk onto another market or function without that market's agreement. You can turn down an investment case that has no account of adoption, of the operating work it relies on, or of what failure would cost. You sign off the regional leadership design, settle clashes between the committee and the market heads before funds are allocated, and decide the form in which progress, exceptions and unresolved choices travel up to the board.

The region's agenda across 24 months

Ninety days in, the committee should agree the regional agenda, the limits local leaders keep and the evidence that governs investment and capacity; the first ninety days are for that and little else. By month nine a regular regional board rhythm should be running, inherited commitments should have been reviewed market by market, and proposals without an accountable sponsor should have stopped. By month 24 the region should be working to one integrated strategy and transformation agenda, led by a structure that operating leaders accept, with a clear way for unresolved issues to reach the committee.

Evidence of having done it before

The businesses you have helped lead reached $800 million or more in revenue, employing 2,100 people across six countries. Through buy-side M&A you kept the story told to the board tied to what the operation was actually showing, and your baselines held when a strategy committee and the people running stores, digital and distribution pushed back on them. Buy-side M&A, succession and geographic expansion form the record the committee will test, with strategy formation expected at level 4 and the value case, PMO governance and change adoption at level 3. Controls that earn their keep stay; each market exception carries a price that everyone can see; and the operating leaders you hand back are stronger than the ones you inherited. The role is wrong for anyone who must win over every market before stopping a programme, or who would rather influence than own the result for 24 months.

One regional agenda, tested four times

The Board Strategy Committee comes first, confidentially and over video in the opening week, to hear how you would assemble a single regional agenda. A fortnight later, in week three, you spend a working session with the Board Chair. In week five the executives who run each function test in person, as a panel, whether your agenda would hold in the markets. Week seven ends it, with the directors meeting you as a full board. We aim to send you our view in writing within two working days of every stage.