Interim Regional President — Commercial Markets and Controls

Demand, service and margin on one page

Commercial organisations often run three clocks. Sales forecasts demand, service teams track what they can support, and finance reports margin after the fact. Each is accurate on its own terms, and together they rarely agree. The interim regional president's task is a single cadence in which a commercial commitment is tested against all three before it is made.

Authority to rule on regional commitments

The appointment carries executive authority. Its first use is to agree which decisions the region takes centrally and what local leaders may still sign off, and to define the proof any request for funding, capacity or control must carry. Each commitment will continue, pause or close on your ruling, and any proposal that drops cost or risk on another team with nobody accountable is halted. Investment will be turned down where the case is vague about uptake, about what it relies on elsewhere in the business, or about what a bad outcome would cost. You will decide who leads and how problems are raised, broker disputes with operating leaders, and fix when and how often the board checks progress, exceptions and unresolved calls.

On a technology platform the controls half of the title matters as much as the commercial half. Product can move faster than commercial teams can price and support what ships, and a regional leader's job is to make sure a promise to a customer is made only once all three clocks agree.

The eighteen-month path

Over the first ninety days, demand, service and margin evidence should be brought into one regional rhythm agreed with the Group Chief Executive Officer. Nine months in, at month nine, regional commitments should be ruled on through that rhythm, with proposals that lack an accountable person stopped before they absorb resources. By month 18 regional leadership and the escalation route should be settled, and the board should be reviewing commercial controls on a steady cycle.

A commercial leader who keeps successors in view

During a platform pivot you have redrawn decision rights, budgets and the pace of commercial reviews, in businesses that had at least $595 million in revenue, 1,000 people and a presence in two or more countries. Before approving the continuation of an exception you have identified who carried its economic cost. You bring successors through while the model is changing, so the new cadence keeps running once you leave. Platform pivot, cost transformation and turnaround experience are examined, with commercial economics at level 4 and, at level 3, revenue architecture, channel partnerships, and handling a board and its stakeholders. You can lay an open question in front of the Group Chief Executive Officer without letting it slow the decision, and a commercial commitment can be stopped on your word even when a country head objects.

A three-week route to the full board

Selection is brief. First, during week one, a private conversation by video with the Group Chief Executive Officer. Then, in week two, a working case with the Audit Committee Chair, testing how you would control commercial commitments. Finally, in week three, you sit down in person with the full board. A written response follows each step within three working days.