Interim Regional Finance and Capital Director — Growth at Scale

Who owns the number

A regional forecast without a clear owner becomes a negotiation. Business heads submit what they can defend, finance adjusts what it can justify, and the figure that reaches the audit committee belongs to no one in particular. The interim director, reporting to the Audit Committee Chair with executive authority for 18 months, is there to put an owner on the regional forecast: every input traceable to an accountable executive, every variance explained by the person closest to its cause, and every capital request accompanied by its downside.

In banking and financial services this matters more than in most sectors, because the forecast feeds capital planning, liquidity and regulatory reporting as well as performance management. A forecast quietly padded in one product line can distort decisions far from where the padding happened.

The authority is broad. You will agree a regional framework that fixes the thresholds kept by local leaders, settle which numbers count when investment, capacity and controls are governed, and rule on whether each inherited commitment continues, pauses or closes. Proposals that shift cost or risk without someone accountable behind them will be refused, and value cases that ignore take-up, dependencies or downside will not be funded. You will approve the route by which issues escalate, and decide how regularly the audit committee sees progress, exceptions and pending decisions. The skill lies in doing all this without stalling the business. A finance leader who can only say no gets routed around; one who explains each refusal with evidence usually finds that the second version of the case is better than the first.

Eighteen months to a forecast the region stands behind

The first ninety days should fix ownership of the regional forecast, with a baseline and an accountable owner for each input. Around month nine forecast variances should be explained to the audit committee on a set rhythm, and capital requests should routinely carry their downside cases. By month 18 forecasting, capital approvals and finance escalation should be owned within the region and should run without the interim director.

Finance leadership that held under scrutiny

You will have led finance where revenue reached $720 million or more and the business employed 1,300 or more people across three countries, ideally somewhere control exceptions had built up across products booked in different ways. The audit committee will look for scale-up, professionalisation and turnaround. The capability profile is capital allocation at level 4, with level 3 expected in FP&A forecasting, in sound controls and reporting, and in judging risk. Be ready to describe a disputed downside you presented to an audit committee chair without softening it, and funding you refused when take-up and downside were missing, followed by the finance capacity you rebuilt.

Three weeks cover the whole process. The Audit Committee Chair opens it in week one with a discreet video conversation; the Regional President works a live case with you in the second; and in the third you meet the directors in person. A view in writing on each stage follows within four working days.