Interim Regional President — Integration (Business Services)

Choosing where to compete, and meaning it

Strategy in a regional services business is rarely one decision. It accumulates from hundreds of smaller ones: which clients to pursue, which service lines to staff, which sectors to serve, which bids to decline. Without a clear view of where the region intends to win, each of those choices defaults to yes, and the region ends up competing everywhere at a level that wins nowhere. The Interim Regional President is appointed to make the choice explicit, which means saying where the region steps back as clearly as where it commits.

Stepping back is the harder half. It means telling clients that a service will no longer be offered from the region, moving people to where the region has chosen to compete, and accepting some short-term revenue loss for longer-term focus. That calls for executive authority, and the role has it. You will set how decisions are allocated across the region and the thresholds left to local leaders, pick the measures that steer spending, capacity and controls, and rule on which commitments continue. Proposals that drop cost or risk on others without an owner will stop with you, and investment that has not reckoned with adoption, dependencies or a bad outcome will be turned down. You will also approve who leads and how issues climb, and report to the Investment Committee at fixed intervals on progress, exceptions and unsettled decisions. Your first visible result may well be a service withdrawn, not one launched, and you will need to defend that with evidence.

The leader the committee wants has done this before and stayed honest about it. You have led through an ESG transition without letting the board's account drift away from what operations could show. You have made decisions that could be reversed on partial evidence, then firmed them up as better information arrived. The organisations you have led ran to $635 million or more in revenue, 2,500 or more people and three countries. The committee will weigh your record in ESG transition, succession and turnaround. It wants strategy formation at level 4, and at level 3 operating cadence, risk judgement and ownership of a P&L. You can tell an investment committee what remains unresolved and what you intend to do in the meantime. Consensus among country leaders is welcome but not a precondition for ending a commitment, and the result is yours for all 18 months.

Eighteen months of narrowing

By day ninety, a regional portfolio review should be agreed with the Investment Committee, setting out where the region competes and where it steps back. Around month nine, the step-backs should be under way, with capacity redirected to the chosen markets and someone accountable for each move. By month 18, the region should be operating within the boundaries it chose, reporting progress and open decisions to the committee on a fixed cadence.

A case, a conversation and the board

The Investment Committee opens the process in week 1 with a confidential conversation over video. In week two the Regional President brings a case to work through together, giving an operating view of what stepping back costs on the ground. Week three is an in-person discussion with the directors. We will send our response in writing within four working days of each stage.