Interim Chief Financial Officer — Liquidity Stabilisation

Immediate finance priorities

Construct a cash view that separates overdue receipts, disputed invoices, committed purchases and genuinely discretionary expenditure. Reconcile inventory records to physical and operational realities, including slow-moving material and customer-specific stock. Establish a weekly cash forum where actions have accountable owners and forecast changes are explained.

Working-capital decisions to own

The CFO will work with sales on billing discipline and dispute resolution, with procurement on payment terms and critical supply, and with operations on order release and stock reduction. Evaluate funding tools against their costs, recourse and administrative requirements. Prevent improvements in one metric from concealing deterioration elsewhere, such as reducing payables through financing while leaving the underlying purchasing problem unresolved.

The cash-release plan should identify the operational reason behind each overdue receipt or stock holding. A disputed invoice needs a different intervention from a solvent customer paying late; excess raw material requires a different response from unfinished orders awaiting a bottleneck process. Classify opportunities accordingly and test expected cash dates against the steps needed to realise them. The CFO should maintain visibility of supplier arrears and service consequences so a temporary improvement in bank balance does not mask a growing threat to production continuity.

Professional fit

Candidates should have stabilised liquidity in an industrial or supply-chain business and demonstrate hands-on command of treasury, management reporting and working capital. Experience must extend beyond financial modelling to resolving operational causes of cash leakage. They should communicate credibly with owners and lenders while giving operating teams clear, practical instructions.

What the permanent team should inherit

The handover should include a forecast with known error patterns, a controlled payment process, a prioritised cash-release pipeline and clear escalation thresholds. Performance should be assessed on sustainable cash conversion and operating continuity, with temporary measures separately identified so they are not mistaken for permanent recovery.