Interim Senior Vice President, Operations — Integration (Logistics and Infrastructure)

Eighteen months to make one decision out of three

Today one manager settles quality, another capacity and a third cost, often on different days. By the end of this appointment they should be decided together, by the people closest to the work. The first ninety days are about a common starting point: a front-line baseline for quality, capacity and cost that operators recognise as their own, and one person accountable for each recurring trade-off, such as whether to run an asset harder this week or hold it for maintenance. Around month nine, the route by which front-line conflicts travel upward should have been used on real cases, and most quality, capacity and cost exceptions should be resolved inside the normal operations rhythm rather than in hastily called meetings. By month 18, joined-up decision-making at the front line should be embedded in how the business runs, and held by a leadership structure designed to keep it there once the interim term ends.

Powers held, not borrowed

The Senior Vice President, Operations holds executive authority, not an advisory brief. The role sets the thresholds below which front-line leaders decide alone, chooses the evidence used when spending, asset capacity and front-line controls are on the table, and rules on which inherited commitments survive. It sends back anything that loads cost or risk on a colleague who has not agreed to carry it, and any investment case that is silent on take-up, on the operating dependencies or on the consequences of failure. It signs off who leads each part of operations, settles disputes with operating leaders while the money is still uncommitted, and decides how often progress, unresolved questions and departures from plan are reported upward. In a member-owned operation, the first visible win may be cancelling a commitment rather than starting something new, and whoever holds the seat should be ready to show members the evidence for it.

An operator who has already joined these choices up

Geographic expansion is where we expect your record to start: operations you led grew into new territory in a business with at least $500 million in revenue and 2,600 or more people across three or more countries, and the story told upstairs never drifted from what the operating data showed. Your experience of professionalisation and turnaround will be examined closely, as will operating cadence at level 4 and operating model, network footprint and quality and safety, each at level 3. In an organisation owned by its members, authority often has to be earned through explanation as much as exercised, so we are interested in how you have made a firm call acceptable to people who did not choose it.

One habit matters especially: turning incomplete operating evidence into a decision that can be reversed, then tightening it as the facts improve. You should be comfortable halting a commitment even when some country leaders still object, and you should want to own the outcome for all 18 months.

A short route to the board

The selection moves quickly. In week one the Regional President talks with you privately over video about the brief itself and how you would use your first quarter. In week two the Regional President returns with a live case, a front-line trade-off between quality, capacity and cost, for the two of you to work through. In the third week you meet the directors face to face. We answer each step in writing within four working days.