Interim management--is it for you?

• Author: Fell, Simone
• Position: Letter from the UK

In the later stages of their careers, many seasoned marketers join consultancies or take on temporary and fixed-term contract work. A smaller percentage have joined the growing number of interim managers who are being hired with increasing frequency across the UK and Europe.

Far from being the place were legal marketing veterans go to die, the UK and Europe's interim management industry is now estimated to be worth over 1 billion [pounds sterling] annually ($1.5 billion at presstime) and a significant number of the UK's Top 150 law firms have used the services of an interim manager. Not bad when you consider that two years ago, there was no real market for interim management in professional services, particularly in the legal sector. There was a general misconception that interims were all middle-aged men who had been made redundant or could not find permanent work. This is no longer the case, as firms recognize the value in hiring sensibly overqualified director/C-level individuals who have made a conscious choice to leave permanent employ, are typically in a relatively strong financial position and can choose the projects that will challenge and inspire them.

Asha Lutchmun is a consultant specializing in interim management at First Counsel and sits on the executive committee of the Interim Management Association. "Interim management is not just about temporary coverage," says Lutchmun. "In the legal market we do see a lot of last-minute 'distress purchases'--often involving maternity and gap-filling for sudden departures at director and just-below director level, but the biggest drivers are more strategic."

According to Lutchmun, those drivers include:

[check] Specific change and business improvement projects, including merger integration or organizational restructuring;

[check] Specialist expertise--interim procurement managers, for example, are delivering jaw-dropping savings in law firms, while risk specialists can be useful interims where there is not scope for a full-time role; and,

[check] Overlap--an interim can cover a role for a permanent, yet-to-be recruited person while firms take their time in finding the ideal long-term employee.

According to Lutchmun, there is a difference between interims and fixed-term contractors and consultants who go on the payroll and can be mid- to senior level. "Interims have typically operated at the senior director and CMO level," says Lutchmun. "What they do is the top-end, daily-rate work. While...