Marketing Director moves to CEO

15/10/2008

Successful Marketing Director moves into a CEO role in Poland.

The highly valued, successful, well-paid UK Marketing Director of major international FMCG in household products wanted to move into general management. He was appointed CEO of the poorly performing Polish operation which had a ‘revolving door’ for CEOs – three in the previous four years! This was a high-risk appointment and a career risk by the individual. He would not fail from any lack of expertise in sales and marketing, but rather if he didn’t manage the business as a total entity operating as a general business manager.

We started to coach the executive in the UK before he took up his appointment, and we organised a briefing for him and his partner about cultural differences in Poland and local social and business practices.

We helped the individual deal with many general management issues, including the organisational culture with ‘silo working’ and destructive blaming behaviours, and to address the synergy and working of the management team, the effectiveness of the sales team, inadequate business processes, and poor information systems. The career transition was successful. After two years, the individual had turned the business around and had achieved the required business targets.