EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP · INTERIM COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR
An Interim Commercial Director with authority over price and terms.
CE Interim appoints proven Interim Commercial Directors when volume is holding and margin is not, when a key account is at risk, or when the commercial organisation has lost the leadership that held its customer relationships together.
Confidencialidad desde el primer contacto. Un ejecutivo previamente seleccionado y que se ajusta al perfil del puesto, listo para incorporarse en un plazo de 72 horas tras la finalización del informe del mandato.
La línea jerárquica
CEO · MANAGING DIRECTOR · BOARD
INTERIM COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR
SALES · KEY ACCOUNTS · PRICING · MARKETING
1,500+
Encargos entregados al año en toda la alianza
90+
Socios operativos en todo el mundo
30+
Países incluidos
95%
Mandatos transfronterizos
72 horas
Desde el informe inicial hasta el inicio de la misión
Definición
What is an Interim Commercial Director?
An Interim Commercial Director is an experienced executive appointed for a defined period to take control of the commercial position: revenue, margin, pricing, key accounts and the commercial organisation. The mandate covers the decisions that determine profitability, not only the activity that produces volume.
The distinction from a Sales Director matters. Where the commercial model is complex, with several revenue streams, channel partners, or major accounts alongside transactional business, a Commercial Director is the appropriate appointment. Where the model is a single, execution-focused sales motion, a Sales Director may be sufficient and the wider mandate more than the situation needs.
Volume can be bought with discount. Margin cannot. This appointment exists because someone has to be accountable for both at once when commercial decisions are fragmented across the organisation.
Condiciones de activación de citas
When businesses appoint an Interim Commercial Director
01
A key account is at risk and nobody senior owns the relationship
A major customer is reviewing, escalating or tendering. The relationship was held by one person, and that person has left or is no longer credible with the customer.
02
Input costs have risen and prices have not
Material, energy or freight costs have moved and the contracts have not. Volume looks healthy, margin is eroding quietly, and nobody has had the conversation with customers that would fix it.
03
Discounting has become the answer to everything
Deals are closing because the price came down. Discount authority has spread through the organisation, the waterfall from list price to realised price is not visible, and the business is buying its own volume.
04
The order book is falling and the forecast is not believed
Revenue is declining, the pipeline shows something different, and the board has stopped treating the commercial forecast as information it can plan against.
05
The commercial leader has gone and taken the relationships
Departure at director level. In CE Interim’s experience, a permanent appointment at this level can take two to three months, and the appointee may then have notice to serve before meeting a customer. Pipeline momentum, relationships and commercial discipline decay throughout.
06
Two sales organisations are calling the same customers
After an acquisition, overlapping coverage, inconsistent pricing to the same buyer, and no agreed account ownership. The customer notices before the business does.
07
A growth case was underwritten and nobody owns it
Commercial due diligence promised a revenue or pricing improvement. The deal closed, the plan exists, and no one in the business has been made accountable for delivering it.
08
Entering a market with no commercial leadership on the ground
A new country or segment is being opened with no senior commercial presence locally, and the customers being targeted expect to deal with someone who is actually there.
¿Es este el asiento correcto?
Does the situation require an Interim Commercial Director?
The determining question is whether the commercial position itself is the problem, or whether the commercial numbers are reporting a problem that lives elsewhere.
Appoint an Interim Commercial Director when:
- Margin is deteriorating while volume holds.
- Pricing, discount authority and contract terms need to be brought under control.
- A major customer relationship has to be rebuilt at senior level.
- The commercial organisation needs restructuring rather than motivating.
- The forecast has to become something the board can plan against.
Regla de decisión
When revenue and margin are both in question and the decisions that resolve them are commercial, this is the appropriate appointment.
Cuando lo adecuado es desempeñar otra función
Where customers are leaving because of delivery performance or quality rather than price or relationship, a commercial appointment treats the symptom: an Interim Plant Manager or Interim Quality Director addresses what the customers are actually reacting to.
Where the whole business lacks direction, an Interim CEO is the appointment.
Where the model is a single sales motion and the requirement is to lead a team executing it, a Sales Director carries the mandate and this appointment is more than the situation needs.
CE Interim define primero el mandato y, a continuación, recomienda la función.
Comparación de funciones
¿Qué puesto necesita la empresa?
Desplaza la tabla hacia los lados →
| Director comercial interino | Interim Sales Director | Interim CEO | Commercial consultancy | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Posee | Revenue, margin, pricing, key accounts | Sales execution and the team | Todo el asunto | The analysis |
| Model it suits | Multiple streams, channels, major accounts | A single sales motion | Any, when direction is the issue | Any |
| Decides | Price, terms, account strategy, structure | Territory, targets, activity | What the business does | Recommends only |
| Nombrado cuando | Margin and revenue are both in question | The team needs leading | Direction is unresolved | The position needs mapping |
| Customer-facing | At senior and board level | At buyer level | Where it matters most | No |
| Hora de empezar | En un plazo de 72 horas desde la presentación del escrito | En un plazo de 72 horas desde la presentación del escrito | En un plazo de 72 horas desde la presentación del escrito | Depends on scope and engagement |
Director comercial interino
Interim Sales Director
Interim CEO
Commercial consultancy
Modos de fallo
Por qué fracasan estas citas
A sales problem is diagnosed and a margin problem is left running.
Activity increases, the pipeline fills and volume recovers, on terms that were never fixed. The business is now busier and no more profitable, and the discount precedents set during the recovery are the ones the next negotiation starts from.
Commercial leadership is appointed to a delivery problem.
Customers are leaving because the business missed delivery dates or shipped quality problems, and a commercial executive is appointed to win them back. The relationships improve briefly and the customers leave anyway, because nothing they complained about has changed
Relationships are held by people rather than by the company.
The commercial recovery depends entirely on one person’s contacts. It works while they are there. The mandate ends, the relationships leave with them, and the business is back where it started having paid for the interval.
Discount authority is never actually withdrawn.
A pricing discipline is announced and the exceptions continue, because withdrawing authority from a team under target pressure requires a decision nobody wants to own. Pricing recovery can fail politically as readily as it fails analytically.
Ámbito de competencia
What an Interim Commercial Director mandate should include
Una línea jerárquica específica, acordada antes de comenzar.
Whether the executive reports to the Managing Director, the CEO or the board determines what can be committed in a customer negotiation. Customers establish the executive’s decision authority quickly, so the mandate should define what can be committed in the room and what requires referral before negotiations begin.
Pricing and discount authority.
The right to set price, terms and discount limits, and to withdraw discretion from people who currently have it. The mandate should make this authority explicit rather than leave it ambiguous.
Ownership of major customer relationships.
The mandate to be the senior counterparty to key accounts, not to accompany someone else. Where a relationship has to be rebuilt, the executive needs standing rather than introduction.
Contract and terms authority.
The ability to renegotiate payment terms, volume commitments, indexation and escalation clauses within defined limits, which is where much of the recoverable margin actually sits.
Authority over the commercial organisation.
The ability to restructure coverage, reassign accounts and address capability gaps, rather than to recommend those changes for later.
Ownership of the forecast.
Accountability for a commercial forecast the board can plan against, including the authority to change how it is produced and by whom.
Nota de autoridad
Authority must be proportional to the decisions the mandate requires in its first thirty days. In a pricing recovery, an executive without the authority to say no to a discount has no mandate at all.
Responsabilidad legal, ámbito de aplicación y cobertura
Responsabilidad legal.
Where the mandate requires it, the executive may receive defined authority over price, terms and contract signature, delegated statutory duties or, where formally appointed and permitted by the local corporate structure, a statutory position. The scope is agreed before the start rather than assumed.
El alcance se acuerda antes de que el ejecutivo comience su labor.
The client, CE Interim and the executive define duties, boundaries and signature limits in writing.
El seguro se contrata por cada mandato.
Executives carry their own professional liability and directors’ and officers’ cover. On some mandates the client provides or contributes to it. CE Interim and every member of the Valtus Alliance carries its own cover as well.
Arco de mandato
How an Interim Commercial Director mandate unfolds
Every mandate is different. The sequence below describes a common pattern of restoring commercial control.
01
Days 0 to 21
Meet the customers, then look at the numbers
Visit the major accounts personally and early, because what customers say about the business is more reliable than what the pipeline says. Establish the real price waterfall from list to realised. Identify which volume is profitable and which is not.
02
Days 22 to 90
Take the pricing decisions
Set price, terms and discount limits, and withdraw the authority that has spread. Open the contract conversations where input costs have moved and prices have not. Rebuild the relationships that depend on someone senior being present rather than on history.
03
A partir del día 91
Restructure and hand the discipline over
Realign coverage and account ownership so relationships sit with the business rather than with individuals. Rebuild the forecast so the board can plan against it. Establish the commercial governance that will hold after the mandate.
COMMERCIAL MANDATE · 9 TO 12 MONTHS
Pricing decisions can be taken inside ninety days. In CE Interim’s experience, three months is the minimum period in which a price position genuinely changes rather than simply being announced. Margin follows the contract renewal cycle, which in many industrial businesses is annual, so the mandate runs long enough to see decisions through to realised price rather than agreed price.
VACANCY COVER · TO THE PERMANENT APPOINTMENT
Where the mandate holds key accounts through a leadership gap, the priority is that relationships transfer to the business rather than leave with the departure. The mandate runs to the permanent appointment. Where price recovery is also included, the duration may extend through the relevant contract-renewal cycle.
Habla con un socio sobre el mandato antes de que la situación te obligue a definirlo.
Resultados y traspaso
What effective interim commercial leadership should achieve
Margin, not only volume
The business knows which revenue is profitable and prices accordingly.
Pricing under control
Discount authority sits where it was intended to, and the waterfall from list to realised price is visible.
Relationships owned by the company
Key accounts are held by the business through defined ownership, not by one person’s contacts.
A forecast that survives contact
The board can plan against the commercial number because it has stopped being an aspiration.
Terms that reflect current costs
Contracts carry indexation and escalation appropriate to the cost base rather than to the year they were signed.
Entrega
Pricing discipline, account ownership and commercial governance transfer to named people inside the business. Continuity without dependency is the objective, and a mandate whose gains leave with the executive has not succeeded.
A quién enviamos
The Interim Commercial Directors we appoint
Has recovered price, not only grown volume.
Has gone back to customers where the commercial position no longer reflected the cost base, renegotiated it and retained the relationship.
Has been received in a customer’s boardroom, not introduced.
Major-account recovery requires enough seniority and authority to negotiate directly with the customer’s decision-makers.
Has withdrawn discount authority from a team under target pressure.
Pricing recovery requires both the analysis and the authority to change behaviour when commercial pressure encourages exceptions.
Has renegotiated terms, not just prices.
Indexation, escalation clauses, volume commitments and payment terms can materially affect realised margin and should be considered alongside headline price.
Knows what the business can deliver.
Commercial promises that operations cannot meet can damage margin, customer confidence and delivery performance. Executives who understand the operational side of that trade-off price differently.
CE Interim works through more than 90 operating partners across the Valtus Alliance, in over 30 countries. That reach is what makes it possible to match sector, customer type and commercial situation within 72 hours.
El modelo de citas
De una reunión informativa confidencial al nombramiento de un directivo
01
Resumen de la situación
A Partner conversation under NDA. Where the commercial position stands, which relationships are at risk, what margin has been lost and what authority can be delegated.
02
Definición del mandato y evaluación específica de los retos
CE Interim defines the scope, the reporting line and the pricing authority, then interviews each executive for this commercial situation and this customer base rather than against a generic sales profile.
03
Presentación, nombramientos y gobernanza
You receive a small number of genuinely relevant executives, not a CV list. The appointment decision is yours, and a CE Interim Partner stays involved through delivery.
Tensión transfronteriza
Why cross-border commercial mandates are harder to govern
Lo que necesita la sede central
- A group price position that actually holds in each market
- To know what is really being conceded locally, and when
- A forecast it can plan against rather than hope for
What each market needs
- Terms that reflect what competitors are doing locally
- A negotiator the customer takes seriously, present rather than remote
- Authority to settle in the room instead of referring upward
A group price list that ignores local competitive conditions can produce either lost volume or local discounting that headquarters cannot see. The Interim Commercial Director therefore needs enough local presence and authority to understand what is being conceded and to negotiate directly where the customer relationship requires it.
Ámbitos en los que trabajamos con mayor frecuencia
Módulos de situación
Typical Interim Commercial Director mandates
Turnaround operativo
Margin is eroding while volume holds, and a key account is under review. The mandate is to recover price, rebuild the relationship at senior level and make the profitable volume visible.
Gobernanza, visibilidad y control
Discount authority has spread and the forecast is not believed. The mandate is to bring pricing under control and produce a commercial number the board can plan against.
Integración tras la fusión y escisión
Two sales organisations are calling the same customers with different prices. The mandate is to agree coverage and account ownership before the customer exploits the gap.
Puesto vacante de liderazgo clave
The commercial leader has gone and the relationships are exposed. The mandate is to hold the key accounts through the gap and transfer ownership to the business.
Entornos sectoriales
Where CE Interim appoints Interim Commercial Directors
Sectores primarios
También se sirven
Entornos de propiedad
Es importante conocer el sector. El criterio de selección determinante es una responsabilidad de liderazgo comparable en una situación comparable, en un entorno de propiedad comparable.
Pruebas del caso
Where this mandate applies
Italian mid-market manufacturer · Intervention across Bulgarian and Romanian markets · Distributor channel
Market development through a distributor network, Southern and South-Eastern Europe
Situación
An owner-managed manufacturer was building its position in two South-Eastern European markets through an established distributor network.
Mandato
Commercial strategy and execution, working directly with the owner. Mandates of this kind turn on channel management and on being present enough in the market to know what distributors are actually doing, rather than on headcount or activity.
Resultado
The mandate was designed to move distributor management from passive oversight to active market execution: clearer visibility of partner performance, more frequent in-market engagement, and a stronger basis for growing sales through the existing channel network.
Coste y duración
What an Interim Commercial Director mandate costs and how long it runs
Los mandatos se facturan según una tarifa diaria en función del alcance, la autoridad y la duración. No se aplica ningún porcentaje sobre el salario, ni comisión por colocación, ni inversión inicial. Se pagan los días trabajados según lo acordado en el mandato, y la tarifa se confirma antes de que el ejecutivo comience a trabajar.
Tarifa diaria orientativa
1.000 € – 3.000 €
Mayor cuando el encargo conlleva un cargo regulado por ley o presenta complejidades transfronterizas.
Duración y hitos
Commercial mandate
De nueve a doce meses
Sustitución por baja
To the permanent appointment
Pricing authority and commercial cadence established
En un plazo de treinta días
Directivo presente en las instalaciones
En un plazo de 72 horas tras la finalización del informe
¿Qué influye en la cifra?.
The complexity of the commercial model and the number of markets and channels. Whether major account recovery sits inside the mandate. Whether pricing authority extends to contract terms as well as price. The language senior customer negotiation is conducted in. Every mandate is delivered on site.
Con qué se debe comparar.
No es el coste del mandato, sino el coste de que la situación se prolongue sin un ejecutivo que rinda cuentas, mientras se aplazan las decisiones.
Lo que realmente vas a pagar.
Un socio te da una cifra en la primera conversación confidencial. Sin coste alguno ni compromiso alguno.
Preguntas
Questions boards and owners ask
Interim Commercial Director or Interim Sales Director?
Commercial Director where the model is complex, with several revenue streams, channels or major accounts, and where pricing and margin are in scope. Sales Director where the model is a single sales motion and the requirement is to lead the team executing it.
Our revenue is falling. Is this the right appointment?
Sometimes. If customers are leaving because of delivery or quality rather than price or relationship, a commercial appointment treats the symptom. A Partner will say so, and will point to the operational appointment that addresses the cause.
How is this different from a commercial consultancy?
A consultancy typically analyses the position and recommends action. An Interim Commercial Director holds delegated executive authority to make pricing, account and commercial-structure decisions and to negotiate directly with customers within the mandate. It is the difference between a recommendation and a decision taken with a team missing target.
Will an outsider damage our customer relationships?
It does not have to. Relationships held by one individual are already a continuity risk. Part of the mandate is transferring them to defined ownership so they survive any departure, including the interim’s.
¿Qué competencias tiene el interino?
Pricing and discount authority, contract and terms authority within defined limits, ownership of major accounts, and authority over commercial structure. Agreed before the executive starts, because a customer establishes what someone can commit to within the first meeting.
Can prices really be recovered without losing the customer?
They can be, where the economics support the change and the relationship can absorb it. The negotiation should reflect the customer’s position, the cost movement, the contract and the value of the account rather than assume every increase can be passed through. Seniority and clear decision authority become particularly important where the account or the negotiation is material to the business.
¿Cuánto tarda alguien en empezar?
A vetted, mandate-matched executive is ready to start within 72 hours of the completed mandate brief. In CE Interim’s experience, a permanent Commercial Director search can run eight to twelve weeks, with any notice period adding further time, and pipeline and relationships decay throughout it.
¿Quién contrata al ejecutivo y qué aporta el cliente?
CE gestiona los mandatos de personal interino en un marco de relación entre empresas, y el ejecutivo interino no se incorpora a la empresa del cliente como empleado fijo. La parte contratante es una entidad local o un centro regional, en función del país de intervención, seleccionada de entre más de treinta entidades de la Alianza Valtus. La situación laboral, las obligaciones fiscales, de seguridad social y otras obligaciones relacionadas dependen de la jurisdicción, la estructura contractual y las circunstancias del encargo, por lo que la contratación se adapta al país en el que se realiza el trabajo.
¿Quién asume el riesgo cuando el directivo ocupa un cargo oficial?
El seguro se contrata para cada mandato. El ejecutivo cuenta con su propia cobertura de responsabilidad civil de directivos y de responsabilidad profesional, y en algunos mandatos es el cliente quien la proporciona o contribuye a ella. CE Interim y todos los miembros de Valtus Alliance también cuentan con su propia cobertura. El alcance de la responsabilidad, los límites y los límites de firma se acuerdan por escrito entre el cliente, CE Interim y el directivo antes de que este último comience a desempeñar sus funciones.
Does the executive need to speak the customer’s language?
Not always, but direct language capability can materially improve a senior customer negotiation. CE Interim treats it as a selection criterion where the account relationship, local market or negotiation requires it. Negotiating through an intermediary can concede ground that is difficult to recover.
How long before margin actually moves?
Pricing decisions can be taken inside ninety days. Margin follows the contract renewal cycle, which in many industrial businesses is annual, so the mandate runs nine to twelve months to see the decisions through to realised price rather than agreed price.
Will we lose customers?
Possibly. The mandate should define which accounts and volumes create sustainable value, and what level of customer attrition, if any, the business is prepared to accept. Price recovery is not about preserving every unit of volume regardless of economics.
¿Qué pasa al final?
A deliberate handover. Pricing discipline, account ownership and the commercial governance move to named people inside the business, so the gains do not leave with the executive.
Every discount granted this quarter is the opening position for the next negotiation.
Habla directamente con un socio interino de CE sobre la situación de liderazgo, el mandato y la autoridad necesaria. La conversación es confidencial y no te compromete a aceptar ningún nombramiento.
Respuesta de los socios en un plazo de 24 horas. Se da prioridad a las situaciones urgentes relacionadas con el liderazgo.
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