Interim Management

From time to time organisations find themselves without senior leaders in specific roles. Vacancies can arise through a number of reasons – recruitment gaps, maternity leave, change management processes. In any of these situations, Counterculture’s experience in the sector enables it to provide interim senior management to our clients in a variety of situations on a contract designed to suit the individual organisation’s needs.

We typically provide interim management to cover Chief Executive, Director, Finance Director or Manager positions, but have the resources and experience to meet other senior management requirements as the situation demands:

  • Chief Executive / Director service: our practical experience of leading and managing organisations at a senior level enables us to fill that vacancy and support the client until the post is filled or until the postholder returns to work. Our philosophy is simple – we agree a period of cover, identify the key tasks and projects that need to be completed in that period of time, and propose a working pattern and relationship to ensure the plan is successfully delivered.
  • Finance Director / Manager service: our extensive experience as finance professionals places us in an excellent position to provide an interim Finance Director or Finance Manager support to orgaanisations. Our service enables you to agree a period of support in which we would take over the senior finance role and ensure that your finance team continues to function on a day-to-day basis, whilst also bringing the benefits of our wide experience of working in the sector to bear.
  • Other senior management roles: the wide range of professional and practical experience within Counterculture also enables us to provide interim cover across a variety of other senior roles including Human Resources Director, Director of Development, Chief Operating Officer, Head of Operations, Head of Exhibitions/Chief Curator, Artistic Director, Membership Services Director and Company Secretary/Head of Governance.

“Shortly after I was appointed Chair of the Trustee Board, the Chief Executive informed me that she would need to take maternity leave of about 12 months starting in March 2018. The risk to USSU was critical without a CEO to lead during a period of revised ways of working internally, with the University and the governance documents to fit the Charity Commission’s model framework. We successfully appointed Phil Benton of Counterculture as the Interim CEO to lead the Union during this period. Phil expertly steered USSU through all the extra challenges brought about by the need to change over this high-risk period. Without Phil being the Interim CEO the Union would, without doubt, have suffered and when the Chief Executive returned at the end of February 2019 the USSU was in excellent health.”

Colin Ranshaw, Trustee Board Chair
University of Sunderland Students’ Union

Phil Benton

Phil Benton

Partner, Vice Chair

+44 (0)7973 269843

Lead contact for Interim Management

Phil’s work includes finance, governance, senior interim management and general management consultancy. Recent projects include being interim Chief Executive for the University of Sunderland Students’ Union, supporting the National Union of Students through a business reorganisation project, an acting as an outsourced Finance Director for several organisations including the Community Transport Association. Phil is also […]

Read Phil's profile

The Interim Management team

Tim Ellison

Tim Ellison

Peter Greaney

Peter Greaney

Tom Wilcox

Tom Wilcox

Chris Potts

Chris Potts

William Chamberlain

William Chamberlain

Amanda Hall

Amanda Hall

Andrea Nixon MBE

Andrea Nixon MBE

Alan Roberts

Alan Roberts

Naomi Lewis

Naomi Lewis

Amanda Smethurst

Amanda Smethurst

Matt Daniels

Matt Daniels

Jonathan May

Jonathan May

Susanna Eastburn MBE

Susanna Eastburn MBE

Sam Male

Sam Male

Mandy Precious

Mandy Precious

Kate Bradley

Kate Bradley

Gemma Painter

Gemma Painter

Sachin Kureishi

Sachin Kureishi

Rajesh Sharma

Rajesh Sharma

Dawn Munro

Dawn Munro

Martina Murphy

Martina Murphy

Jonathan Kennedy

Jonathan Kennedy