The scope of our contract covers both selecting the suitable Interim Manager, and monitoring the progress of the ongoing project. The process can take a few days to a few weeks, depending on your own internal processes. All SMW partners begin working with you immediately being accustomed to quick turnarounds and will do our best to ensure the fastest response. Once you’ve received the best-fit candidates, you will review the candidates based on your own schedule. The entire process is seamless and much faster than the common permanent placement, which can take several weeks or months! We save you valuable time, effort and energy so that you can focus on growing your business.

We take into account several variables to establish best fit. Once we understand what you need and you give us the green light to move forward, we will match you with an executive or team to explore conversations.

No fees to get started – the background of the executive(s) we present speak for themselves. If there is a fit with an executive, we will define how the executive will serve the company, team members, executives, board members, and shareholders.

What we take into consideration when assessing FIT:

a. Industry – Prior experience in your industry may be a positive – or negative – when considering who best to put in a leadership role or in charge of a vital project. Industry-specific experience is a positive when the vast accumulation of knowledge from prior roles instantly becomes relevant in a new situation, crisis or opportunity. But, especially in industries facing significant transformation, all the accumulated industry specific expertise can backfire and in those cases, fresh thinking is mandatory.

b. Location – While for permanent placement location might be mandatory close to company’s in case of Interims it is less important because they are used to travel the world to take on great challenges and, due to short-term nature of assignments, they rarely, if ever, permanently relocate.

c. Skills – Skills refers both to the executive’s experience across various functions within organizations, including sales, operations, marketing, finance, and accounting, as well as the accumulated experience, methodologies and track record the executive brings to bear in a given engagement. It is important to recognize the difference between skills and industry experience.

d. Stage of the company – Launch, scaling up into new markets, organic growth, expansion through acquisitions, turnaround, or exit whether sale, IPO or merger. Each stage requires a different mindset and skillset.

e. Personal traits & behaviours – The best Interims act with integrity, get things done and are driven by making positive change in people, organizations, and even the surrounding community. They are action oriented people, love challenge, fast paced environments and are really good at stepping into pivotal, turning points in a company, but not so great at running things smooth and steady for the long term.

Contracting an Interim Manager is possible under any legal form, usually being a 3-parties B2B contract with Interim Manager’s remuneration calculated at the daily or monthly rate. Our remuneration is calculated as a percentage of remuneration paid to the Interim Manager. At any given moment you may decide to employ the Interim Manager on a permanent basis.

We continually assess progress through monthly reporting, voice an unbiased point of view and, when necessary, bring additional skills and/or knowledge into play from our global network. Towards the end of the assignment, the IMA Partner develops, in collaboration with the client and the Interim Manager, a handover plan for the new permanent management team, to ensure a lasting continuation of the successful result achieved.