The short answer
What does an Interim Commercial Director do?
An Interim Commercial Director takes operational ownership of a company's commercial function for an agreed period. Not advice from outside. The seat, the accountability and the results.
That means hiring and restructuring the team, setting and running the commercial strategy, rebuilding reporting and process, holding the numbers, and handing over a working operation at the end. Where a consultant diagnoses and departs, an interim director stays and is measured on whether it worked.
I have run commercial functions for sixteen years across eight countries, most recently as Commercial Director of a merged organisation covering six markets, four business units, 25 people and a P&L in the tens of millions. I now do that work independently.
When to hire one
When should a company hire an Interim Commercial Director?
Eight situations account for almost every enquiry I receive. If one of these describes your business, a conversation is probably worth having.
A commercial leadership gap
Your commercial director or chief commercial officer has left, or is about to, and the permanent search will take months. The function cannot be left to drift, and splitting the job between existing executives usually means nobody owns it. An interim holds the seat, keeps the numbers moving, and hands over to whoever you appoint.
An underperforming sales or commercial team
The team is not hitting targets and nobody can say precisely why. There is often no internal candidate to lead it out, either because the problem sits with the current leadership or because the people who could fix it are already fully committed elsewhere.
Revenue stagnation
Growth has flattened or gone backwards. The plan looks reasonable on paper, the market has not collapsed, and yet the numbers have stalled. This is almost always execution rather than strategy, which is why a new plan rarely fixes it.
Commercial transformation
The operating model that got you here will not get you further. Pricing, structure, incentives, process and reporting all need reworking at once, and the business has to keep running while it happens.
International expansion and market entry
You are opening a country where you have no name, no network and no team. Someone has to make the first hires, build the partner base, adapt the go to market approach to local reality, and hand over an operation that holds.
Post merger commercial integration
Two commercial organisations have to become one. Overlapping teams, competing processes, contested account ownership, two incentive schemes and two cultures that both think they won.
Commercial restructuring
The shape of the team no longer matches the shape of the opportunity. Roles need redefining, layers need removing or adding, and accountability needs to land somewhere specific.
Professionalising a commercial function
The business grew on relationships and founder energy and now needs a system: a forecast people believe, a pipeline that is real, a rate card, a management cadence and standards that survive any individual leaving.
Market context
This is now a normal way to buy senior leadership
Most chief executives hiring an interim commercial director for the first time want to know whether it is a normal thing to do. It is, and it has changed considerably in the last five years.
Heidrick and Struggles, who place interim executives and survey the market annually, report that engagements at chief officer level have grown 151% since 2021, and that the buyer has moved down market: companies below a billion in revenue now account for more than four fifths of demand. Interim leadership used to be what large enterprises did in a crisis. It is now how mid sized companies buy senior capacity they cannot justify permanently.
151%
Growth in senior interim engagements since 2021
4 in 5
Of demand now from companies under 1bn revenue
42%
Of engagements now run beyond six months, up from 27%
87%
Of leaders name execution, not strategy, as the blocker
The last figure is the one I would draw your attention to. Eighty percent of leaders plan transformations and only 58% feel confident executing them, and when asked what actually blocks them, 87% named execution rather than strategy. That is not a missing plan. It is a missing pair of hands senior enough to own the plan.
The same research finds engagements getting longer rather than shorter, which tells you something about what interim leaders are now hired for. Nobody engages a stopgap for eight months. They engage an owner.
Evidence
Track record and results
I took commercial ownership of a contracting organisation shortly after a merger: six markets, four business units, twenty five people and tens of millions in annual revenue. The first half of that first year was down 11% year on year. By the fourth quarter, five of the six markets were growing double digits and the sixth had almost stopped falling. Managed account gross merchandise value roughly doubled over the following year.
+44%
Combined commission across six markets, the following year
+153%
The strongest single market, in one year
+93%
A market rebuilt, after a 19% decline the previous year
~2x
Managed account gross merchandise value
Earlier in my career
I opened a country from a standing start of one person, building the client base to 800 and the team to nine. Before that I onboarded more than 200 partners in twelve months across an undeveloped territory with no online distribution culture.
In 2020 I led a market that lost its single largest revenue category almost overnight. We reallocated the portfolio into the categories where demand was actually rising, held the market as the group's top performer throughout, and came through the year with near zero attrition.
The succession bridge
Interim leadership as part of succession, not a gap in it
A leadership gap is usually treated as a hole to be plugged. Used properly it is one of the few moments when a company can find out what the role should actually be before committing to it for years.
Stabilise
Keep the function performing while the seat is empty. The alternative, splitting the job between existing executives who already have their own numbers to hit, means nobody owns it and the drift is invisible until a quarter has gone.
Provide a sustained owner
Critical work in progress needs one accountable person, not a committee of the willing. That is particularly true where a transformation, an integration or a market launch was already under way when the leader left.
Test the mandate before you define the role
Most job specifications for a replacement are written from the last person's job rather than the next person's. An interim period generates real evidence about scope, decision rights and the capabilities the role actually needs, so you hire against reality rather than against history.
Develop the successor
Where there is an internal candidate who is close but not ready, an interim can carry the accountability while giving them the stretch, the exposure and the coaching. They then enter the role with clearer expectations and stronger support, rather than being promoted into a mess and blamed for it.
The clearest thing I can tell you about how I work is that I once recruited a country manager who then became my own line manager. Every engagement I run ends with a written handover and someone who can operate without me. Making myself unnecessary is the job, not the polite ending to it.
The first month
What happens in the first 30 days
I work to a fixed sequence, and the first two weeks of it involve changing nothing at all.
Days 1 to 10, ground truth
I speak to every person in the commercial function individually, sit in on live client calls without contributing, pull whatever data exists and read the last few board packs. By day three I have a view about where revenue actually breaks, and I spend the rest of the fortnight trying to disprove it.
Days 10 to 20, visibility
Before performance, reporting. Most underperforming commercial functions have numbers. What they do not have is numbers the commercial team looks at weekly and knows how to act on, which is a different thing. If nobody can say quickly where revenue comes from, which accounts grew, who owns what and what happens the week a particular person leaves, that gets fixed first, because everything afterwards is measured against it.
Days 20 to 30, the core motion
Every commercial business has one behaviour that actually creates revenue. I find it, find out when it stopped, and restore it with a written standard per person and a date it starts.
End of month one
You get a written diagnosis, a baseline you can measure me against, and a prioritised plan. Strategy comes later, deliberately, because a strategy written before the first three steps is a document nothing happens to.
How it works
Typical engagement structure
Most engagements start with a commercial diagnostic: two to four weeks, fixed fee, ending in a costed plan. Sometimes that is the whole engagement. More often it scopes what follows.
Interim engagements run longer, embedded with the team, typically four to five days a week. Length is agreed around the problem rather than a fixed template, and every one ends the same way: a written handover, a functioning team, and a successor who can run it.
Availability
The UK, Europe and beyond
I am a British and Brazilian national, and I spent 23 years living and working in London. I am happy to travel to be on site for engagements that need it, and I work on UK hours.
Engagements across the UK, Europe and further afield are all welcome. I have led commercial operations across eight countries, and the commercial mechanics travel further than most people expect.
Questions
Interim Commercial Director, answered
What is the difference between an Interim Commercial Director and a consultant?
A consultant diagnoses and recommends. An interim director takes the seat and is accountable for the result. I do both, but the distinction matters at the point of hiring: if you want a report, hire a consultant; if you want the outcome, hire someone who has to live with it.
How is this different from a fractional CRO or fractional commercial director?
Fractional usually means a day or two a week across several clients at once. I work embedded, typically four to five days a week with one client, because commercial turnarounds need presence rather than availability. If a lighter advisory arrangement suits you better, I work that way too, but I will say plainly which one I think your situation needs.
Do you work with companies outside London?
Yes. London and the UK are where most of my network and history sit, and I travel there regularly, but I have led commercial operations across eight countries and take engagements anywhere in Europe and beyond.
What size of company do you work with?
Mid market companies and scale ups, including private equity backed businesses after an acquisition, and larger groups integrating or expanding. Typically anywhere from a commercial team of five to an organisation of several hundred.
How quickly can you start?
Usually within two to three weeks of agreeing scope. A commercial diagnostic can often start sooner, since it needs less setup than a full interim engagement.
Would you consider a permanent role?
Yes, for the right commercial leadership role. The work is much the same either way and a first conversation is the quickest way to establish whether it fits.
Related