The New Category of Interim Executive Management

We’ve been thinking recently about GT Dave, an entrepreneur who dropped out of high school and founded GT’s Kombucha at age 17. His parents swore by the health benefits of Kombucha tea and while GT’s homemade recipe was the foundation for a new company, what he actually did was create an entirely new category. GT Kombucha holds an estimated 60% of a $600M market, and it’s still growing strong.

Creating a new category requires two things above all else: an unwavering sense of mission, and devotion to quality. The challenge is that paving a new path does not always translate to instant success and understanding. At the Association of Interim Executives we believe in the power of interim executive management and have taken on a mission to be the voice of the specialty and to help companies around the globe succeed because of access to world class executive talent.

But when you create a new category, education comes first. We thought it would be easy to talk about Europe as the genesis of interim executive management. But we’ve learned that in reality, in Europe much of interim has become commoditized, with tons of anonymous job postings and claims of tens of thousands of qualified executives, which is nonsense.

Interim executive management in the US is uncharted territory, and while the Association is global, the US is one of the great test markets to bring together world class executives from all around the world – the true interims and rock stars — that are skilled at instantly tackling a company’s challenges and untapped opportunities. Interim is a career and each interim executive is unique.

Interim as we are creating it through the Association is far more nuanced, artisanal, and quality driven. We aim to create a specialized market for executives and companies where the work being done or the result being sought cannot be commoditized.