KeepyourCareerMovingintheInterim
17 May 2009
Interim Management offers a rewarding and exciting career option and gives organisations access to valuable management expertise...
Career choice
When Michael Cowan decided to enter the interim market in 2005, he already had 18 years’ experience as a marketing director under his belt in the FMCG field. Among Cowan’s previous employers were multinationals, including Proctor & Gamble, Diageo and PepsiCo in Ireland, Britain and Central Europe.
‘‘It was pretty much a deliberate career choice,” Cowan said. ‘‘My wife and I decided to move back to Ireland. At the time, I looked at my CV and felt that interim management just suited my long-term career aspirations.”
Cowan said the move into the interim market was relatively straightforward.
‘‘The first role I had was working for a well-known Irish drinks business which was looking to launch a new product,” he said. ‘‘With my background, the functional skills and experience were there. It was just a matter of focusing on the assignment at hand and delivering a certain project brief.”
He said that the interim management projects he had so far worked on had been varied and interesting. ‘‘I am on my fourth interim assignment in five years,” Cowan said.
‘‘I have worked for drinks companies, an international sports body on a particular tournament, a financial institution and now an iconic Irish retail business.
‘‘Typically, I would be with a client for six months. Quite often, you are replacing someone who has a very specific skill set that might take longer to recruit long-term.”
‘‘Also quite often, as in my current role, you are brought in to fill a void that is not just one particular job, but work across the organisation to sort out some fundamental issues and devise the best way forward.”
Working as an interim manager allows Cowan to focus on the project to hand, while avoiding long term management issues and the potential to become involved in company politics.
‘‘Working this way is about meritocracy,” he said. ‘‘You are very much rewarded for getting the job done, rather than being part of a department and getting established within the company politics and infrastructure. You are just there to do a job, which helps keep you focused, and helps you to be much more effective.
You can switch in and out of different companies and challenges. It helps to keep fresh that way.”
The flexible nature of interim work suits Cowan’s personal circumstances. ‘‘I come from New Zealand and this allows me the flexibility to, if I want, take three months off without it interfering with the business,” he said. ‘‘It suits our family lifestyle as well.”....
Interim roles
Many different types of organisations use interim managers - and for many different reasons, according to Deirdre O’Shaughnessy, business development manager with Inter IM Executives.
‘‘There is no ‘typical’ client,” O’Shaughnessy said. ‘‘Opportunities come from all sectors of the economy - private, public, and non-profit - and cover all managerial functions and qualifications. Interim managers can support one off projects, such as integrating mergers or acquisitions, product or market diversification or IT initiatives.
‘‘Interims can also be taken on to support organisational change, such as the introduction of new processes or management strategies, or to take over a critical role where a senior executive is absent through illness or pending the replacement of an outgoing executive.
‘‘An interim manager can even test a new or changing role in advance of a permanent candidate being appointed.”
Extracts from the Sunday Business Post 17 May 2009