Executive Decision-Backlog Recovery Leader

The mandate

Two executive departures and an extended chief executive medical absence fragmented the forums that once converted analysis into binding choices. Forty-seven items now circulate between underwriting, capital, claims, technology and regional committees; several carry mutually inconsistent recommendations, unnamed decision owners or no quantified consequence of delay. Renewal-season capacity, a claims-platform release and two investment reallocations cannot tolerate another quarter of deferral.

The leader must start within twelve days and hold the decision-recovery seat for nine months while a permanent executive-operations search proceeds independently. The first thirty days will classify the backlog by reversibility, regulatory consequence, value at risk and last responsible decision date, then reset the weekly executive agenda around choices rather than updates. Bermuda visits occur in months two and six, with regional owners joining evidence sessions remotely.

Handover is complete only when every inherited item is decided, explicitly retired or returned for named evidence; new proposals use one decision record; and no critical choice has aged beyond its agreed clock for eight consecutive weeks. The permanent successor must chair two unseen cases during a five-week overlap, surface dissent, call the decision and retrieve the rationale without relying on the interim leader's private notes.

This seat may set the triage method, reject papers that conceal alternatives, convene accountable executives, close delegated decisions and publish the authoritative decision ledger. The chief executive retains underwriting appetite, material capital allocation, senior appointments and decisions above GBP 75 million; the board retains strategy and risk appetite. The interim cannot manufacture consensus, override regulated accountabilities or substitute process compliance for commercial judgement.

General corporate strategy, portfolio valuation, committee secretariat administration, policy drafting and the redesign of underwriting or claims functions remain outside scope. The leader will repair how consequential choices move and how commitments are tracked, not become owner of every delayed programme. Any discovered conduct, reserving or solvency concern moves immediately to the designated control function rather than through the recovery backlog.

Why this seat is open

The organisation's informal decision broker left before a formal operating discipline existed, and subsequent leadership absence exposed the dependency. Executives are producing more analysis while fewer choices reach closure. The board wants temporary authority to clear the inherited queue and leave a repeatable decision system before the permanent appointee arrives.

What you will own

• Classify all inherited decisions by consequence, reversibility, evidence sufficiency, accountable owner and last responsible decision date.
• Rebuild executive agendas around explicit choices, competing options, dissent, dependencies and the cost of postponement.
• Decide delegated matters, escalate reserved matters and record the rationale, conditions, expiry triggers and follow-up commitments.
• Challenge papers that blur recommendation, fact, forecast and preference, returning them with precise evidence requirements.
• Establish a single decision ledger connecting committee minutes, financial consequences, regulatory ownership and delivery commitments.
• Test the discipline through renewal, claims-platform and investment-allocation cases whose clocks and stakeholders materially differ.
• Transfer chairing practice, unresolved exceptions, retrieval controls and two unfamiliar live decisions to the permanent successor.

Candidate qualifications

• Held enterprise executive authority in a regulated insurer, reinsurer or comparably complex financial institution during leadership disruption.
• Cleared a consequential cross-functional decision backlog without collapsing legitimate challenge into artificial speed or executive theatre.
• Distinguished reversible experiments from board-reserved choices involving appetite, capital, customers and regulatory accountability.
• Built decision records that remained usable months later for assurance, benefit tracking, learning and successor interpretation.
• Managed strong technical leaders whose competing evidence required a clear call rather than another coordination meeting.
• Completed an orderly transfer to a permanent executive using live cases, observed chairing and independently retrievable rationale.

Non-negotiables

• Can begin in London within twelve days and travel twice to Bermuda during the stated nine-month window.
• Brings regulated executive decision experience; programme reporting, facilitation or committee administration alone is insufficient.
• Will preserve risk, actuarial and compliance independence while exposing avoidance, weak evidence and unowned delay.
• Accepts that strategy, risk appetite, major capital, senior hiring and regulated-control decisions remain with named owners.

1. 49 words maximum. Describe the largest executive decision backlog you personally converted into explicit choices and retired items.
2. 49 words maximum. What is your earliest London start date, and which existing commitment could constrain Bermuda travel?
3. 49 words maximum. Give one example where delaying a technically reversible decision created a materially irreversible consequence.