Interim Senior Vice President, Operations — Delivery Recovery

A year in which three trade-offs become one

A year can change how front-line decisions are made, if the opening months are spent well. Inside the first ninety days, the Interim Senior Vice President, Operations, should have agreed with the Board Operations Committee a single way of making front-line decisions that weighs quality, capacity and cost together, with clear thresholds and a responsible leader for each area.

The middle of the year is where behaviour changes. By around month nine, front-line leaders should be deciding on quality, capacity and cost at the same time and from shared evidence, rather than optimising one and leaving the others to someone else. A supervisor who adds a shift to protect service should be able to see what it does to cost; a cost saving that erodes quality should be visible before it is banked. Exceptions should have owners rather than drifting upward.

By month 12 delivery at the front line should have recovered, and the Board Operations Committee should be seeing it on a settled reporting cadence.

Authority at the front line

The senior vice president holds executive authority under the Board Operations Committee. That authority covers setting how front-line decisions are made and the thresholds kept by local leaders, deciding which shared evidence must back any choice on spending, capacity or control, and ruling on which inherited commitments carry on. Proposals that export cost or risk to a neighbouring team without its consent will be stopped; investment will be declined if its case has not worked out who will use it, what it hangs on and how far it could fall short. The senior vice president also approves the leadership structure and how a front-line problem makes its way to senior attention, resolves conflicts between the Board Operations Committee and operating leaders, and agrees how frequently the board looks at progress and open decisions.

The leader the front line will follow

Seven countries, 2,000 people and $665 million or more in revenue: that is the minimum span of operation you will have led, and you can distinguish local judgement that a market needs from variation that has simply been protected. Your experience of joint ventures, cost transformation and professionalisation will be considered. Cost transformation is the obvious match, but it is the combination with professionalisation that matters: cost savings that do not become routine tend to come back. Operating cadence is required at level 4. Operating model, network footprint, and quality and safety are each required at level 3. In your record, evidence has redirected people, money and attention, and you remain accountable once the board has decided, including for the patient work of closing operations exceptions.

How we will meet

The Board Operations Committee speaks with you first, by video and in confidence, as the process opens in the first week. The Audit Committee Chair takes week three, concentrating with you on quality controls at the front line. In week five, executives heading each function question you in person, and the full board has the final conversation in week seven. Each stage is answered in writing within three working days.