Interim Chief Customer and Revenue Officer — Recovery

A revenue leader who has ended a popular partnership

The candidate who fits this seat can point to a commitment that was well liked and that they ended anyway, explain what the numbers showed, and say what the freed budget and people went on to do. That is the temperament the role needs. Your record was built in organisations of no less than $770 million in revenue and 1,300 people, operating in two or more countries, and you can tell local judgement the business needs from variation that survives through habit. At comparable size you have set baselines that held up under challenge from senior leadership and from the specialists who build and run the product.

Value creation, succession and professionalisation experience are examined, together with commercial economics at level 4 and, at level 3, revenue architecture, partner channels, and relations with a board and its stakeholders. You can give the Regional President an honest account of what is still unknown alongside a firm recommendation, and you will act without waiting for unanimous agreement from country leaders.

Partnerships judged by contribution and control

The interim holds executive authority to build partnerships around measurable contribution and control. For a not-for-profit technology organisation, partnerships can carry mission value as well as revenue, which makes the discipline more important, not less: a partnership that serves the mission but escapes control can still expose the organisation.

You will set who decides customer, revenue and partnership choices, with clear limits on what local teams may agree alone, and name the evidence a funding, capacity or control decision must rest on. Every commitment gets your verdict to continue, wait or close, and anything that passes cost or risk on while nobody stands accountable is refused. Investment cases that cannot show customer uptake, the dependencies involved and the downside will be declined. You will fix who leads and the path a problem takes upward, and bring conflicts with operating leaders to a resolution while budgets and staffing are still open. Contribution, here, means something a partner measurably adds; control means the organisation can see, price and if necessary exit what the partner does on its behalf.

Twelve months to a partnership book that earns its place

You and the Regional President should, in the first ninety days, agree the measures of partnership contribution, the control standards every partner must meet and the allocation of customer decisions. At month nine, every partnership should have been reviewed against those measures, and those falling short on contribution or control paused or ended. By month 12 customer and revenue leadership and escalation should be settled, with partnership performance reported on a set cadence.

Four conversations before an offer

Your first conversation, in week one, is a confidential video call with the Regional President. Partnership controls are likely to be examined in detail when you sit with the Audit Committee Chair in the third week. In the fifth week you meet in person executive leaders from every function, and the full board of directors in the seventh week. After each stage, a written note follows within three working days.