Interim Regional Operations Director — Recovery (Industrials)

Three decisions that belong together

Three different people usually own quality, capacity and cost. Quality sits with a quality function, capacity with planning, cost with finance or procurement. On the shop floor they are one decision: running a line faster to meet a schedule affects scrap, and switching to a cheaper material affects both. When the three are separated, each function optimises its own measure and the plant absorbs the conflict.

Where the director's authority lands

The Interim Regional Operations Director brings these decisions together at the front line, reporting to the Country Managing Director with executive authority for 12 months. You will agree how regional calls are made and how far a plant head's signature reaches, and decide what evidence capital, capacity and quality-control requests must carry. You will rule on which commitments go on, pause or end. Plans that leave exposure unowned, and investment cases that miss adoption, dependencies or the downside, are stopped or declined. You will approve who leads each site and how difficulties surface, settle disputes with plant heads before any resources are spent, and choose the board's reporting rhythm for recovery progress, overruns and choices still open.

Customer exposure as a discipline

In manufacturing, a single schedule or quality failure at a major customer can travel a long way. A good regional operations director treats that exposure as a reason to put quality decisions close to the line and to make capacity commitments only on evidence that the plant can meet them.

Ninety days, nine months, a year

Frontline decision rights for quality, capacity and cost should be agreed within the first ninety days, with a recovery lead accountable at each site. Around month nine those decisions should be taken jointly at the front line, and every recovery commitment ruled on. By month 12 the regional recovery should be complete, with frontline decision rights holding and exceptions reported to the board.

The operator in question

You have worked in businesses with at least $805 million in revenue and 2,200 people, across four or more countries, and you can tell a site that needs its own way of working from one guarding an old habit. You bring scale-up, succession and professionalisation experience. The seat calls for operating cadence at level 4, and operating model, network footprint and quality and safety at level 3. Evidence has moved people, capital and leadership time in the businesses you ran, and you can trace where. When the board has decided, the result is still yours, including the closing of every operations exception. You are able to describe an unresolved gap to a country managing director without using uncertainty as delay, you will stop a commitment without unanimous country-leader consent, and you will be accountable for the full 12 months.

The sequence of meetings

In week one the Country Managing Director talks with you confidentially by video. The Audit Committee Chair follows in week three, with a practical session on recovery controls. Executives who each run a function meet you face to face in week five, and week seven brings the full board. You will have our assessment in writing within three working days of each stage.