Rapier Interims
Our Interim Managers/Directors are highly experienced and professional career Interims, who have previously held senior and board positions in businesses. Interim Management is tough. Only a tiny percentage of those who try the job succeed in forging a new career path. Interim Management as a career is not for the faint hearted, or for those filling in time between permanent jobs. Our Interims have extensive experience, not only as an Interim but previously as a senior executive or director in permanent roles.
Our Interims thrive on uncertainty, and are not seeking a return to corporate life, so will be totally independent of any aspirations within your organisation. They do not pose a threat to your established employees, but work alongside them to get the best results for the business. Our professional Interims have high standards for themselves, and will expect high standards from those with whom they work.
They have the ability to work strategically but also implement, and are results-focused. They are used to “hitting the ground running” and getting into the job immediately.
We work across a wide range of industries, and are comfortable operating at board level.
What is Interim Management?
An Interim Manager is a hands-on individual who can be brought in to run a company, a division or department, or a project, when no-one in-house is available or has the required knowledge, skill and experience.
Interim Management covers areas such as:
- Filling a gap created by a sudden departure or unavailability of a senior manager or director;
- Bringing a specific project to successful fruition – implementing a major initiative;
- Effecting/facilitating culture change or other major changes in the organisation – to transform the organisation;
- Setting up new businesses or subsidiaries and closing down unprofitable ones;
- Managing acquisitions, mergers, divestments, and particularly integrating staff and systems;
- Mentoring and team development;
- Adding specific expertise, especially at board level, where the company needs it and for a short period;
- Crisis management – including expansion, contraction or relocation;
- Turning round an ailing business, even one facing imminent insolvency. (Turnaround Interims are a very special breed of Interim, and only a very few undertake this work, because of the specialist knowledge and experience needed).
Benefits of Interims
The company gets the benefit of instant experience and a capability that is almost certainly higher than the job requires. You will have an implementer who will be focused solely on the job you want doing, and not on building a career in the company. Another advantage is that our Interims will not be involved in office politics.
The Interim will not come with any preconceived ideas, internal baggage, or affinities to any faction or person in your organisation – they are truly independent.
Choosing the Interim Manager or Director
Your choice will be a personal one as well as one of competence. Many Interims can bring valuable experience from other industries and markets into your business, so specific industry experience is less important than the ability of the Interim to be flexible, to have proven experience in the type of work you want done, to be able to work on their own initiative, work with your own people, and with you.
Sometimes an Interim will have to be chosen for their ability to “ruffle feathers”, especially when the job is to initiate and implement change. For that role you will not want an Interim who is constantly trying to please everyone, as the change is never going to happen!
Confidence
Take the Interim into your confidence. They have the immense advantage of impartiality. Their assessment of a situation may prove invaluable. In fact, it may turn out that they are the only people to have executed such a project previously. You are buying that kind of expertise.