Cometh the hour, cometh the boss

Jan 10 2008 by The Journal

THE concept of interim management is relatively new to the North-East, but it’s not hard to understand why it is seen as the perfect solution to a persistent problem in many areas of the UK.

Small and medium size companies often find there is a period in their business life when they could do with an injection of specific expertise to handle a particular job or project or when they simply need an extra pair of experienced hands to bridge a skills gap for a while.

Getting access to a senior manager with years of experience who could take on the task and then leaves when it’s completed seem a virtually impossibility. But it is providing this service – and many more – which is at the heart of Talent Pool.

Talent Pool is all about impact resourcing, matching up the perfect candidate to a particular company which needs certain skills at a specific point.

It is a way for companies to achieve high impact results, allowing them to employ someone who has a proven track record in the field and can bring that expertise to the table for a designated period of time.

Talent Pool already has a number of top quality interim and projects managers who are from a wide variety of backgrounds, which allows the organisation to supply experts to a diverse range of fields.

Although Talent Pool is a relatively new organisation, it has lined up professionals with backgrounds in sales, finance, marketing, human resources, manufacturing, supply chain and logistics, engineering, IT, telecommunications, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and turnaround specialists to take on the challenges that their clients
face.

Heading the company is Kish Mistry, a business and marketing professional who has worked for blue chip companies with an international reputation.

Having worked for the majority of his career in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and healthcare sectors, Kish has also had experience as an interim manager and realised the potential in providing that expertise to other organisations.

He said: “This is a new concept for the North-East and part of Talent Pool’s work is to inform and educate commercial people about the value of injecting top quality expertise into their businesses to carry out specific projects as and when they need it.”

He sees interim managers being brought on board for a wide range of reasons. “They can provide cover for maternity or long term sick leave, specific project management or cover for executives who have left unexpectedly or because a company cannot afford a particular skill set permanently.”

At the same time, Talent Pool can provide the skills for companies which have new policies or procedures they are keen to introduce but don’t have the proficiency to do themselves.

Talent Pool aims to provide a level of support which simply hasn’t existed for companies in the North-East giving them a gateway to a huge knowledge base that they previously might have thought wasn’t accessible – or affordable.

“This is a new concept for the region, but one which provides excellent opportunities for companies of all sizes,” said Kish.