What to Do When Your Company Has No General Manager
When a company loses its general manager or CEO, the first thirty days decide whether the business stabilises or drifts. Protect cash, keep the top customers close, hold the leadership team together, and appoint an interim CEO within days so someone owns the operating decisions while the permanent search runs.
The first thirty days
- Communicate the transition to the leadership team, customers and lenders in one clear message
- Protect cash: freeze non-essential spend, extend payables where possible, keep the top ten customers close
- Assign interim decision rights to a named executive, not a committee
- Appoint an interim CEO within days if the seat cannot be filled internally
Why waiting is expensive
Every week without a decision maker at the top costs momentum. Deals slip, the leadership team hedges, key people start listening to recruiters. A four-to-nine-month permanent search compounds that drift. An interim CEO holds the line so the permanent process runs from a stronger starting point.
What the interim CEO owns from day one
- Cash, top customers, top ten leadership decisions
- A ninety-day operating plan agreed with the board in the first two weeks
- An honest read of the leadership team, delivered to the board in month one
- A clean handover to the permanent successor at the end of the mandate
https://niklaslindahl.com/guides/company-without-general-manager