Interim Senior Vice President, Finance — Value Agenda

Finance leadership before the planning cycle opens

A planning cycle tends to lock in whatever discipline exists when it starts. If cash ownership is vague and performance measures are contested going in, the plan will inherit both problems and carry them for a year. The Interim Senior Vice President, Finance, is appointed to set those foundations first, and then to make the value agenda run through them over 24 months, with executive authority throughout.

The authority is broad. Which finance limits local leaders retain is the executive's decision, as is the choice of measures that steer investment, capacity and control. Inherited commitments are ruled on one by one. A finance proposal that leaves its cost or risk sitting with no one is rejected, and investment cases that ignore uptake, what they rely on or the downside are declined. Shaping the finance leadership team and the route by which problems climb is the executive's to approve, as is settling clashes between the Group Chief Executive Officer and operating leaders; the executive also decides how often cash progress, deviations and undecided items are reported.

In a listed hospitality business, cash discipline is often less about cost than about timing: deposits, seasonal working capital and refurbishment spend all move cash on schedules that do not match the profit and loss account. A finance leader who understands those rhythms can tighten discipline without starving the operation.

A finance leader who builds successors as they go

The person we have in mind has led finance where revenue reached $1005 million or more, with 6,500 people or more working across two countries. Restructuring, joint venture and succession experience will count most, the last because the result expected at month 24 must not depend on the interim executive's personal intervention. Ranking a value agenda is a capital allocation exercise, so we look for level 4 there; level 3 will do for risk judgement, controls reporting and FP&A forecasting.

You have led a restructuring whose effects showed up both in board papers and in front-line rotas. In your record, evidence has redirected money, staff and senior attention. You develop successors while changing the model, and you expect to be held to the two-year result rather than to the first six months.

Two years from first cash owner to successors in place

Before the next planning cycle opens, and inside the first ninety days, cash forecasting, the owners of working capital and the format of performance reviews should all be agreed. Around month nine that planning cycle should have been run on the agreed cash and performance measures, with value-agenda commitments ranked and each one owned. By month 24 the value agenda should be tracked through the ordinary finance rhythm, with successors in place to run it.

How the appointment is decided

The Group Chief Executive Officer begins it, privately and by video, in week 1, on the mandate and the planning timetable. The Audit Committee Chair takes week 3, focusing with you on cash, controls and performance reporting. Week 5 is a face-to-face session with executives, each responsible for a different function. The full board meets you in week 7. Our feedback comes in writing, never more than three working days after each stage.