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Temporary Theory
Hiring an interim manager might be the solution for time-strapped
company execs
By Joe Castaldo Print Version
Pat Loduca found himself so caught up in running
the day-to-day operations of Upper Lakes Group
earlier this year that the CEO realized he wasn’t
thinking about growing his Toronto-based business.
And his 10-member management team was just as
swamped. But something had to be done to keep
the marine shipping company competitive. “We
really needed to step back and focus on where we
wanted to take the company,” Loduca says. Hiring
another full-time executive would have been a
lengthy process, so Loduca turned to The Osborne
Group, an interim executive management agency
headquartered in Toronto,
and essentially rented one.
Using temporary
management can be ideal
for cash-strapped
companies that need to tap into the expertise of a
seasoned executive but can’t justify hiring one fulltime.
In Loduca’s case, he hired a vise-president of
strategic planning to restructure the company’s
various business groups and identify long-term
opportunities for each, a process that four months
later is still ongoing.
Interim managers are more typically called upon for
smaller projects.
That was the case for Jamie
Cuthbert, president of graphic design firm and sign
manufacturer Saitech International, when he landed
an order in July to build touchscreen kiosks for
2,000 auto repair shops across the U.S. The task
was too much for his company to deal with, so
Cuthbert hired an executive from Atticus Interim
Management in Toronto to lead Saitech through the assignment’s technical and quality control aspects.
Once completed, Cuthbert says his company will be
better equipped to tackle larger projects. “It’s been
very good at providing us with skills we can use
over and over,” he says.
The concept of interim management flourished
during the 1980s in the U.K., when then-prime
minister Margaret Thatcher privatized governmentowned
companies, creating a need for experienced
managers, but it isn’t as common here in Canada.
“Many times we’ll go into a business and they ask
us, ‘Where were you three
years ago? We could
have used you,” says Jane
Matthews, an executive at
The Osborne Group. She
expects the popularity of
interim managers to grow, given the number of
small to mid-sized businesses in Canada and the
high demand for skilled leaders.
Such services don’t come cheap, however.
Corporate clients should expect to pay between
$1,200 and $2,000 per day for an executive. At that
price, clients should be sure to assess the quality of
potential managers, Greg Petkovich, president of
Atticus, also stresses that temporary executives are
not meant to replace consultants.
Still, Cuthbert, for one, says an interim manager is a
better solution for his money. “Consultants are of
little help to entrepreneurial companies that are
running flat out,” he says. “We don’t need more
people telling us what to do.”
By Joe Castaldo
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