Interim managing director: leadership without a gap.

When an interim managing director makes sense

Four situations account for most of my enquiries:

• Vacancy. The managing director leaves unexpectedly, falls ill or is removed. Finding a permanent replacement takes six to nine months — the company cannot wait that long.
• Succession. The founder or owner is stepping back. The next generation needs more time, an external successor has not been found yet, or the business should be put in order before the handover.
• Change of ownership. A private-equity investor or a group takes over and needs leadership it can trust from day one — until the new management team is in place.
• Restructuring. Earnings and liquidity are under pressure, the bank demands a plan, the existing management is part of the problem or simply worn out.

What I take on as interim CEO

I run the company operationally — with everything that entails: responsibility for earnings and liquidity, leadership of the management team, conversations with banks, key customers and suppliers, reporting to owners, advisory board or supervisory board.

If required, I also take the role as registered managing director under commercial law, entered in the company register. Whether that is necessary depends on your situation: for bank negotiations, contract signatures and restructuring it usually is; for a short vacancy cover it often is not. We settle the details during scoping together with your legal advisers.

What I do not do: reshape the company to make myself indispensable. Every decision is documented so that my successor understands it and can carry it forward.

The first 100 days

An interim mandate has no onboarding period in the classic sense. My approach follows a clear logic:

• Days 1 to 10 — situation report. Numbers, liquidity, contracts, order book, key people. The result is an honest picture for the owners: what holds, what is burning, what can wait.
• Days 11 to 30 — priorities and communication. Three to five topics that make the difference. Clear messages to staff, banks and customers. First visible decisions.
• Days 31 to 100 — execution. The priorities are worked through, the management team is strengthened or supplemented, reporting is running. In parallel, succession planning begins.

Owners and the supervisory board receive a weekly update throughout — short, fact-based, unvarnished.

Handing over to the successor

The mandate is only a success once the successor is in place and the company runs without me. That is why the handover is part of the brief from the start:

• A requirements profile for the permanent appointment — drawn from the first weeks in the role, not from a job advert.
• Support in the selection process if wanted, with no personal stake in the outcome.
• Structured onboarding of the successor with a shared transition period.
• Optional executive coaching for the new managing director during the first months.

Why me for this role

I have worked as a managing director for 33 years — in my own company, which I led from founding to around 300 employees and sold in 2014, and afterwards as General Manager EMEA within a US group. I have been accountable for a business-model transformation without a loss-making year, experienced a change of ownership from the inside, and I know how investors, banks and staff think in such phases.

As a Certified Interim Manager I work to clear rules: brief, authority and end date are fixed in writing. An overview of all the roles I take on for a defined period is under interim management; if the situation is already critical, read on under turnaround and crisis management.