Interim Regional Finance and Capital Director — Delivery (Consumer and Retail)

Ownership, not arithmetic

A regional forecast can be produced by a capable analyst. It can be checked by a capable auditor. Neither makes anyone own it. This interim director is not being appointed to build a better spreadsheet or to police the numbers others submit. The appointment is about ownership: making sure that every line in the regional forecast belongs to a leader who will stand behind it, explain the variance when it comes and act on what it shows. Nor is this an advisory seat. The director holds executive authority, under the Group Chief Financial Officer, over regional forecasting and capital.

What owning a forecast actually involves

The work starts with deciding who decides. The director will set how regional forecasting and capital decisions are made, including the thresholds kept by local leaders, and decide what evidence the region will accept when spending, capacity and control are at stake. A forecast that each business unit builds to its own convention cannot be owned at regional level, so a common evidence standard comes first.

From there the director rules on inherited commitments, deciding which carry on and which stop. A proposal that pushes its cost or risk into a unit's budget without that unit's say-so will be stopped, and so will any capital request that is silent on who will use what it buys, which other spending it presumes and what a bad outcome would cost. The director approves the regional finance leadership structure and how far a disputed number may travel before it is settled, resolves conflicts with operating leaders before capital is tied up, and decides the rhythm at which the board reviews progress, exceptions and decisions not yet taken.

The finance leader this suits

You will have held finance leadership over at least $450 million in revenue, 1,300 people and six countries. Your experience of a culture reset, professionalisation and turnaround will be examined closely, the culture reset most of all, because moving forecast ownership from a finance team to operating leaders changes behaviour before it changes accuracy. Capital allocation is required at level 4. At level 3 we need FP&A forecasting, risk judgement, and controls and reporting.

Your record should show evidence changing where people, money or management attention went. You have made finance choices where waiting would have cost money, and you can describe a well-supported commitment you closed, what the numbers showed and where the freed budget and people went. A finance commitment can be stopped on your judgement without a consensus of country leaders, and you will be held to account across all 18 months.

Ownership agreed, then running by month 18

Within ninety days, the Group Chief Financial Officer and the director should have agreed who owns the regional forecast, the capital thresholds and the evidence standard every market will follow. Around month nine each market should be forecasting to that standard, and capital commitments with nobody willing to own them will have been paused or ended. By month 18, regional forecast and capital decisions should be owned within the agreed thresholds and successors should be running the cycle.

Selection takes three weeks. In week one the Group Chief Financial Officer meets you over confidential video to discuss the ownership problem and your approach to it. In the second week you work through a live case with the Audit Committee Chair. The third week brings you together with the executive committee in person. Five working days is the longest you will wait for our response in writing after each stage.