News

Sign up for our newsletter

Our quarterly e-newsletter will keep you up to date with news and views from Interregna and the world of interim management. Click here to register!

Use interim managers to extend your corporate skill set

Catherine Graham is Interregna’s senior consultant specialising in FMCG marketing and financial services. For her, interim managers offer much more than a pair of helping hands: “Today’s interim managers are often multi-talented individuals with a broad base of skills. They can bring a lot more to the party than a function specialist who may have only worked in one industry sector.”

From the point of view of the interim manager, it is now often seen as a positive career move, allowing them access to a wider range of positions at a senior level. The client can equally take advantage of that experience across different sectors and disciplines.

“Going back a few years, when the building societies were launching current account facilities, there was a time when banks, for example, would positively recruit FMCG marketeers to present a more consumer-facing image to the customer. These new recruits would invariably have had a classical blue chip marketing CV but perhaps no previous experience in the financial sector other than as a consumer themselves. One only has to look now at how the banks and building societies compete for each other’s business with all sorts of marketing tactics once only employed on the back of a cereal packet to realise how marketing any brand requires an innovative approach!”

There is a fantastic advantage in taking on an interim manager with real breadth of experience in both a variety of sectors, and perhaps functions. An organisation may feel specific skills from outside their sector would really bring something fresh to the table. With an interim manager, the company can take that ‘risk’ for a limited period without the significant financial commitment a permanent position would entail. In turn, that may lead to employing a ‘safer option’ but less qualified or challenging individual- or of course either extending the interim’s brief or employing them full time.

Interim management is a flexible way of working that can really broaden a company’s skill set at the top, at a time when you may need it the most, keeping an organisation ahead of the competition.

< back