Critical-Vendor Insolvency Response Leader

The mandate

The organiser requires an interim executive to oversee exhibitor accreditation, service ordering, access credentials and onsite issue routing across three imminent exhibitions. A transition to replacement providers is underway, involving the transfer of configuration data and system artefacts. An executive gap exists twelve weeks before the first build.

The six-month assignment begins within seventy-two hours and covers continuity triage, asset and access recovery, critical-service decomposition, alternative fulfilment, venue interfaces, exhibitor communication, payment safeguards and event-by-event stabilisation. The leader will travel continuously across Paris, Milan, Cologne and Barcelona, maintaining one dependency picture from build through breakdown rather than treating each exhibition as an isolated local rescue.

Handover succeeds when all three events complete with controlled accreditation and exhibitor service, deposits and claims are reconciled, replacement or insourced capabilities have tested runbooks, and no essential access rests with the failed firm. A permanent operations director must lead an unseen credential outage and late exhibitor change during the final event's breakdown week, observed but not rescued by the interim.

The leader may invoke continuity clauses through counsel, pause further payment, approve emergency suppliers within EUR 5 million delegated authority, redeploy internal teams, simplify noncritical service and make live-event recovery calls. The chief executive retains cancellation and major reputation decisions; counsel owns insolvency rights; Finance owns provisions and claims. Safety and venue authorities retain their nondelegable powers.

Event commercial strategy, long-term registration-platform selection, litigation conduct, insolvency negotiation, venue procurement, exhibitor-contract redesign and workforce restructuring are outside scope. The assignment protects the three named events and leaves controlled capability options. No recovery tactic may misrepresent credential security, conceal lost data or transfer supplier employees without authorised legal review.

Why this seat is open

The vendor failed at the point when event configurations became specific and switching costs peaked. The incumbent executive's leave removed the only person with cross-event operational authority. An immediate interim leader is required to protect exhibitor trust, make bounded recovery decisions and transfer a tested continuity model after the final event.

What you will own

• Establish the recoverable assets, access, data, staff, deposits, configurations and contractual rights for each event immediately.
• Decompose accreditation and exhibitor service into essential, substitutable, simplifiable and deferrable capabilities by deadline.
• Decide emergency sourcing, internal redeployment and service simplification within delegated financial and event-continuity limits.
• Coordinate venues, security liaison, country teams and exhibitors around one controlled credential and issue-routing truth.
• Govern communications on service availability, deposit treatment, data status, escalation and restoration without unsupported assurance.
• Command three build-live-breakdown cycles, recording decisions, residual vulnerabilities, costs, claims and supplier-performance evidence.
• Transfer tested runbooks and an unfamiliar credential-outage plus late-change scenario to the permanent operations director.

Candidate qualifications

• Led continuity after a mission-critical service-provider insolvency close to an immovable public event or launch date.
• Understands accreditation, access control, exhibitor ordering, venue interfaces, data custody and live-event decision clocks.
• Recovered assets and capability alongside administrators and counsel without making unauthorised insolvency or employment commitments.
• Has simplified services under extreme time pressure while preserving safety, credential integrity and transparent customer communication.
• Managed several simultaneous sites whose local recovery choices competed for the same scarce people and alternative vendors.
• Completed handover after live execution through tested runbooks and an unfamiliar event-day failure rather than retrospective documentation.