Interim FDs: a permanent career fixture
24th June 2011
By Archer Mathieson’s Ben Davies and BIE’s Nick Diprose
Working as an interim manager has become the considered career and lifestyle choice for hundreds of finance professionals in the UK. But stepping off the traditional career treadmill means abandoning all the benefits and security of permanent employment and selling your skills, know-how and experience on the open market. So what kinds of people choose to do this, what experience and skills permit this way of working and why did they make the move?
Having originated in The Netherlands about 30 years ago, today interim management is an accepted resourcing option for organisations that have short-term needs for expertise and capability, typically covering six to eight months. It is used when the organisation either doesn’t already have that resource or doesn’t need it permanently. As well as filling in gaps to cover the ebbs and flows of key permanent staff, many senior-level interims are hired to help with business-critical projects. These include implementing change and transition programmes, mergers and acquisitions, special projects, turnaround, and strategy.
Interims sell experience and it is therefore no surprise that the majority are individuals ‘of a certain age’; according to one reputable market survey, 96% of those operating as interims are aged 40-plus. And while women are increasingly drawn to interim work, 80% are men.
However, experience itself is rarely enough to keep an interim in regular work. Above all, clients will be looking for people who can demonstrate a serial ability to diagnose, lead, plan and execute on time, on budget. Interims also need to be fast on their feet, persuasive and commercially- minded; running a limited company, selling and marketing yourself are all part of the role. On top of that, an interim with superior ‘soft skills’ will usually win the assignment if two identically skilled people are competing for the same work.
What else characterises the typical finance interim? Having met many thousands of interims over the years and – whether they’re from finance or any other function – what frequently comes out is a frustration with traditional corporate hierarchies, the pace of change and the politics. Many tell us they enjoy the satisfaction of getting things done, leaving the client organisation in better shape and moving on to a new challenge.
Variety, personal freedom and independence are other key factors. Interims usually have quite low boredom thresholds, which is why they are attracted to the variety of short-term assignments. Financial reward is often less important; many interims are already financially secure, especially those who’ve held senior executive roles previously. However, interim managers will believe strongly in being paid their worth to an organisation, and being paid for measurable delivery rather than collecting a monthly salary.
Archer Mathieson is currently seeing demand for finance interim managers with language skills (particularly German and French), ERP implementation experience (SAP), knowledge of latest shared service centre ‘best practice’ and project implementation, and financial turnaround – especially within private equity owned companies. Over at BIE Interim Executive, demand is for senior, ‘heavy-hitting’ finance people who offer the credible impact to walk into a client’s boardroom or business, immediately understand the issues and, because of previous experience and learning, deliver sustainable improvement. They know what a good legacy looks like.
Taking these core competencies as a given to succeed in the interim market, particular skills and expertise in demand from today’s finance interim include the ability to partner an managing director or chief executive, an immediate understanding of business, cost and profit drivers, and a clear understanding of the power of information technology to provide value-adding management data and business-enhancing information. Demand for competencies and behaviours like these are never ephemeral.
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