Interim Regional Finance and Capital Director — Investment Discipline at Scale

Not a review, and not a treasury post

Capital directors brought in on an interim basis are often asked to audit what went before and leave a report behind. Nothing of the kind is being asked here. Nor is this a funding or treasury brief: the question is not where capital comes from but what has to be true before any of it is spent. The director will write investment hurdles that price in the delivery and control dependencies a proposal leans on, and then hold the line on them, with executive authority over the region's finance decisions for 18 months. They decide; they are not there to recommend.

Hurdles that count what a project quietly assumes

In telecoms and technology a capital case rarely fails on its headline return. It fails on what it takes for granted: that a platform will be ready when the commercial launch needs it, that a migration will finish before the old cost base is switched off, that control testing will keep pace with the build. The heart of this seat is turning those assumptions into part of the hurdle itself. A proposal that cannot show who carries its delivery risk, or which control it relies on, does not clear the bar however attractive its return looks on paper.

The authority runs in several directions. The director settles which spending thresholds sit with leaders in each market and which come up to the region, and chooses the information on which investment and capacity are governed. Every inherited commitment gets a ruling: keep funding it, hold it, or stop it. A sponsor whose case quietly parks cost or risk with a team that never signed up for it gets the case back, and so does one that says nothing about who will take the change up, what it leans on, or how a shortfall would land. The director also decides the shape of the finance leadership team and how unresolved questions travel to the board, and settles disputes with operating leaders before money moves rather than after.

A record of saying no and making it stick

The finance functions you have run should have served a business turning over $770 million or more, with 1,800 or more people spread across four countries, and somewhere in your career sit a platform pivot, a cost transformation and a turnaround. Capital allocation carries the weight, at level 4. Behind it sit FP&A forecasting at level 3, controls reporting at level 3 and risk judgement, also at level 3.

What that looks like in a person: you have taken a contested downside to a board and stated its consequence at full strength. You have refused funding when nobody could say how a change would be adopted or what failure would cost, and then rebuilt the finance capability so the next case arrived better made. If a market head disagrees with a ruling, you hear them out and then rule anyway, and you expect to own what follows for the full term.

From first hurdle to a bench that applies them

Within the first ninety days, hurdles should be agreed and written down, with one accountable capital owner in each market. Around month nine, every new capital proposal should be passing through them as a matter of routine, and each inherited commitment should have had its ruling. By month 18 the discipline should live inside regional planning itself, applied by a finance team that no longer needs an interim director to apply it for them.

Board, president, executive committee

Week 1 is a confidential conversation by video with the Board of Directors, on the mandate and the first hurdles you would draw. A week later, in week 2, you take a live capital case through with the Regional President. In week 3 the Executive committee meets you face to face for a longer discussion. After every stage you will hear back from us in writing inside three working days.