Cross-Function Commitment Recovery Leader

The mandate

Commercial teams promised configured instruments, applications validation, laboratory preparation, installation and scientist training as one outcome, although five functions accepted only their separate tasks. A missed oncology-laboratory launch exposed unowned prerequisites, late configuration changes and conflicting definitions of readiness. The customer-delivery executive resigned during the resulting escalation, leaving eleven strategic accounts with disputed dates and no credible end-to-end commitment owner.

The leader starts within fourteen days for an eight-month recovery covering promise intake, feasibility, prerequisite evidence, configuration freeze, allocation, site readiness, installation, method transfer, training and early-life support. The first six weeks must triage the eleven accounts and restore one customer-facing truth without bypassing quality or application-science authority. Three residencies will follow the most failure-prone handoffs from order promise through accepted operation.

Exit requires all eleven accounts on owned recovery paths, a commitment contract used for two complete order cohorts, fewer than five percent unexplained date movements and no readiness surprise inside twenty working days of installation. A permanent vice president joins in month six and must settle an unfamiliar scope-change dispute plus a site-readiness failure during a four-week observed handover.

The interim may reject unfeasible dates, convene a binding readiness decision, allocate authorised specialist capacity, freeze configuration under policy and approve customer recovery spend up to SEK 6 million. Product leaders retain roadmap and technical release; Quality owns validation; commercial executives approve concessions above the threshold. The role cannot alter regulated method claims or promise capacity that accountable functions have not evidenced.

Manufacturing yield, long-term product strategy, field-service network design, sales compensation, laboratory construction and customer procurement remain outside this assignment. The leader repairs the integrity and ownership of promises spanning those systems, not every source of variability within them. Product complaints and regulated performance concerns enter established quality processes even when doing so worsens a customer date.

Why this seat is open

The departed executive personally negotiated each inter-function handoff, masking the absence of an institutional commitment contract. The oncology launch failure made that fragility visible to customers and the board. Temporary authority is needed to recover the exposed accounts, install governed promise discipline and transfer it through live exceptions to a permanent leader.

What you will own

• Triage eleven strategic commitments by customer outcome, configuration, prerequisites, capacity, validation and credible recovery date.
• Decide whether proposed dates are accepted, conditioned, resequenced or rejected using evidence from every accountable function.
• Establish the commitment contract covering scope, assumptions, freezes, dependency owners, change control and acceptance evidence.
• Chair readiness decisions where commercial urgency, application validity, site preparation and specialist capacity materially conflict.
• Allocate authorised recovery resources and escalate concessions, quality concerns or claims to their reserved decision owners.
• Track unexplained date movement, prerequisite ageing, late changes, readiness surprises and early-life support stability by cohort.
• Transfer two complete cohorts and unseen scope-change plus site-failure cases to the incoming permanent vice president.

Candidate qualifications

• Held executive customer-delivery authority in scientific instruments, diagnostics equipment or another configured technical-product business.
• Recovered major account commitments spanning product, manufacturing, installation, validation, applications science, training and service.
• Rejected commercially attractive dates when prerequisites or regulated evidence could not support a responsible promise.
• Built end-to-end commitment controls without absorbing the formal accountabilities of Quality, Product, Sales or customers.
• Managed technically expert teams and demanding laboratory buyers through uncertain scope changes and consequential launch delays.
• Transferred recovery leadership through live exceptions rather than relying on process documents or completed-account presentations.

Non-negotiables

• Can start within fourteen days and complete three site residencies during the fixed eight-month term.
• Brings configured scientific-product delivery experience; generic order management or customer-success leadership is insufficient.
• Will protect validation and quality escalation even when the consequence is a missed commercial commitment.
• Accepts product roadmap, regulated claims, major concessions, facility readiness and permanent appointments as reserved matters.

1. 49 words maximum. Describe a technical customer promise you reset because cross-functional readiness evidence was false.
2. 49 words maximum. What is your earliest Stockholm start date and your availability for three site residencies?
3. 49 words maximum. Which prerequisites must be immutable before accepting an installation date for configured laboratory equipment?