Regional-Market Governance Consolidation Leader

The mandate

The regional president resigned after a distributor dispute revealed that seven acquired businesses still apply different credit overrides, seasonal inventory rules, price authorities and quality escalations. Corporate functions issue standards, but country managing directors retain inherited workarounds and the regional office mostly aggregates outcomes. Shared customers exploit differences, slow inventory migrates across borders without accountable ownership, and country forecasts cannot be compared. An interim operator must make the region governable before the next planting cycle.

The executive must begin within four weeks and serve for twelve months while the international CEO reviews the permanent regional model. The first 60 days map active authorities, customer and inventory exposures, and stop the highest-risk cross-border exceptions. The next two crop cycles establish common forums and service rules; the closing quarter completes legal-entity adoption, resolves inherited escalations and prepares the permanent regional leader through live country decisions.

Handover requires one approved authority schedule, comparable seasonal plans, a governed regional inventory pool, harmonised distributor exception evidence and two monthly cycles without undocumented country overrides. Every material slow-stock and credit position must have an owner and disposition. The successor must inherit seven signed country charters, open decisions with context, and a tested planting-season command rhythm rather than an aspirational integration roadmap.

The interim may direct regional operations, set inventory allocation inside approved country and product limits, reject unsupported distributor exceptions, redeploy regional staff and approve commercial recovery actions up to GHS 20 million. Legal-entity mergers, market exits, permanent country appointments, price moves outside delegated bands and credit exposure above limits require group approval. The incumbent cannot alter product registrations, agronomic claims or statutory managing-director duties.

ERP consolidation, legal merger, brand architecture and long-term manufacturing footprint are outside this assignment. The leader will define interfaces and operating requirements for those owners but will not absorb their programmes. This is a governance and execution recovery through two crop cycles, not a licence to standardise legitimate agronomic, regulatory or channel differences between markets.

Why this seat is open

An abrupt executive departure exposed that acquisition integration had created reporting lines without common operating decisions. The next crop cycle leaves no time for a permanent search to resolve immediate credit, stock and distributor conflicts. The group has delegated temporary regional authority with explicit boundaries so markets can operate coherently while the future structure is decided.

What you will own

• Map and decide regional versus country authority for pricing, credit, inventory, distributor exceptions, quality and supply allocation.
• Stop cross-border stock, credit or customer workarounds that lack traceable owner, economic rationale and local legal permission.
• Establish comparable crop-season plans connecting demand confidence, inventory ageing, import lead time, credit and channel commitments.
• Govern a regional inventory pool that makes transfer value, shelf life, registration, landed cost and service consequence visible.
• Chair monthly country reviews that end in owned decisions rather than aggregated explanations of incompatible local performance.
• Secure seven signed market charters preserving legitimate agronomic and statutory difference while removing inherited convenience.
• Induct the permanent regional leader through live distributor disputes, seasonal allocations, authority boundaries and unresolved country risks.

Candidate qualifications

• Ran a multi-country agriculture, inputs or seasonal distribution region containing acquired businesses and independent distributor networks.
• Has consolidated pricing, credit, inventory and commercial authority without erasing necessary regulatory or agronomic variation.
• Understands planting cycles, product registration, shelf life, import constraints, channel finance and field-demand uncertainty.
• Personally resolved cross-border customer or stock arbitrage caused by inconsistent country operating rules.
• Can challenge statutory country leaders while respecting local duties and holding a coherent regional operating position.
• Completed a temporary regional handover after governing at least two seasonal cycles under revised decision rights.

Non-negotiables

• Available in Accra within four weeks and willing to travel monthly across all seven country businesses.
• Brings direct regional operating authority in seasonal inputs; post-merger advisory work alone is insufficient.
• Accepts group and statutory boundaries on market exits, legal entities, permanent appointments, registrations and pricing.
• Will disclose distributor, agricultural-input, competitor, government and portfolio-company interests before appointment.

1. 49 words maximum. Describe a cross-border distributor or inventory conflict you resolved after acquisitions left inconsistent country rules.
2. 49 words maximum. Confirm your Accra start date and the seasonal businesses where you held regional authority.
3. 49 words maximum. Which local differences would you refuse to standardise in a crop-science operating model?