What it is
Interim management is the placement of an experienced senior leader on a full-time, fixed-term basis to cover a defined gap: a CFO on parental or medical leave, a transformation programme that needs a dedicated leader, or a sudden, unplanned departure at the top of a function. Unlike a permanent hire, everyone involved knows from day one that the mandate ends once the gap is closed or the project is delivered. Assignments commonly run three to nine months, though complex transformations or restructurings can extend well beyond a year.
It sits between two neighbouring mandate types and is often confused with both. A fractional executive works part-time by design, often across several clients at once, and the arrangement can continue indefinitely. An interim manager works full-time for a single client, temporarily, by definition. Executive search, meanwhile, is normally a process to find a permanent hire. Interim management fills the seat while that process runs, or replaces the need for a permanent hire altogether if the business decides not to make one.
Interim management is not a slower placement. It is full-time leadership hired by the day, for exactly as long as the gap lasts.
Why it matters
When a senior seat sits empty during a restructuring, an audit or a leadership transition, every week of delay carries real risk. That is why interim mandates move in days, not months, sourced through a dedicated interim or executive network rather than a standard advertised process, and billed on a day rate rather than a fee tied to an annual salary. Day rates for senior interim mandates commonly run into four figures in Europe, agreed before the assignment starts and independent of what a permanent version of the role would pay.
For a desk, interim management is a distinct line of business, not a smaller version of a normal search. It needs its own network of leaders who deliberately choose interim careers, its own commercial model built around a day rate rather than a percentage of salary, and the operational ability to deliver a shortlist in days. The consultant who already has that bench warm wins mandates a standard permanent-hire process never even sees.
How boilr handles it
boilr watches for the signals that typically precede an interim need: a sudden executive departure, an announced restructuring, an acquisition that leaves a leadership gap, or an extended absence in a key seat, and surfaces them before the mandate ever reaches an interim marketplace. Because interim mandates run on a different clock and a different commercial model than permanent or fractional work, boilr tracks interim management as its own mandate type with its own ICP, rather than folding it into the standard pipeline.
On the candidate side, boilr keeps the desk's bench of interim-ready executives in the Company Brain, along with day-rate history and past mandates, so a matching name surfaces the moment a signal fires instead of the search starting cold. Because speed is the whole point of interim work, that head start is often what decides whether your desk gets the call or a competitor does.
