Interim management puts an interim manager, an experienced leader, on a time-boxed mandate with a defined objective rather than in a delivery role. In Belgium there are three ways to structure that, and the difference matters more than most clients expect. One of them is not a service contract at all, and under it the person cannot legally be an employee.
To engage an interim manager in Belgium: independent provider, seconded employee, or appointed officer. They are not interchangeable.
Since when a company officer has been irrebuttably self-employed under Belgian law.
Employment contracts possible for a director's mandate. The law leaves no option there.
Mandate definition
The objective, not a job description.
Structure and status advice
Which of the three routes actually fits.
Search on a short clock
Days, because the need already exists.
Authority and reporting design
What they can decide without asking.
Handover planning
From day one, not from month five.
Reviews against the mandate
Against the objective, not the calendar.
Exit and knowledge transfer
The part that decides whether it worked.
Speed that matters
Interim exists because something already broke: a departure, an acquisition, a programme that lost its owner. The relevant measure is days to a credible name, not weeks to a shortlist, and everything in the process is built around that.
Authority that is real
A mandate without decision rights is an expensive advisor. We define what the person can decide alone before they arrive, because an interim manager who has to escalate every call will not fix in six months what took years to break.
A structure that holds up
The route chosen deliberately rather than by default, so the arrangement survives both an inspection and the moment the mandate turns out to need more authority than anyone planned.
A planned exit
The handover designed at the start, not improvised at the end. An interim mandate that ends with nobody able to continue the work has produced six months of activity and no change.
Independent | Seconded | Appointed officer | Permanent hire | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who employs them | Nobody, they invoice you | The provider employs them | Nobody, and nobody can | You do, directly |
| Authority | Delegated, by contract | Delegated, through the provider | Full, and personally liable | Whatever the role carries |
| Status risk | Yours, if independence is a facade | The hiring-out question applies | None, self-employed by law | None, they are your employee |
| How it ends | The contract term runs out | The assignment ends | The mandate is revoked | It is not meant to |
| Fits when | A defined objective, bounded scope | You want an employer in between | The role has to bind the company | The gap is not actually temporary |
It turns on one question: does the person need to bind the company, or only to run it?
Mandate and structure
What has to be true in six months, what the person may decide alone, and which route that requires.
Search and introduction
Named candidates from a pool already known to us, because there is no time to build one now.
Start and first review
In place quickly, with the first review at week four against the objective rather than against activity.
Delivery and handover
Reviews against the mandate rather than the calendar, and a handover built from the first month so the work continues after the person leaves. Mandates that extend twice usually reveal that the objective was never written down properly.
To engage an interim manager in Belgium: independent provider, seconded employee, or appointed officer. They are not interchangeable.
Since when a company officer has been irrebuttably self-employed under Belgian law.
Employment contracts possible for a director's mandate. The law leaves no option there.
Finance direction
The most common interim mandate, and the one most often needing signing authority.
Technology and IT direction
Usually a programme that lost its owner, rather than a vacancy in the strict sense.
Operations and plant direction
Where a site cannot run without someone accountable, so the clock is measured in days.
HR and people direction
Frequently tied to a restructuring or an integration with a defined end point.
Security and risk
Increasingly recruited with a written accountability mandate, which suits interim well.
Supply chain direction
Crisis-driven, where the mandate is usually to stabilise before anyone redesigns.
Automotive and manufacturing
Plant leadership gaps that cannot wait for a permanent search to conclude.
Financial services
Where fit and proper assessment applies to the role, which shapes the route chosen.
Technology and innovation
Scale-ups needing a function built before they can hire someone to run it.
Tell us what has to be true in six months and what the person will need to decide alone. We will tell you which route that requires and who is available to do it.
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