The Invisible Transition

When Stefan joined the Regional Director role for Emerging Markets at a top-10 European food company, he thought he was stepping into an exciting growth job. The portfolio covered 23 markets across Africa, Middle East, Central Asia, and South-East Asia.

Six months in, he realized the truth. He wasn't a growth leader. He was an undertaker.

The company had gone through three restructuring rounds in two years. The local offices in Nigeria, Pakistan, and Philippines were closed. The teams — people who knew the market, the distributors, the regulations, the unwritten rules — were let go with a thank-you email and a severance package.

What was left was Stefan, his colleague Anya (who covered the same 23 markets from Singapore), and a set of distributor contracts that nobody had reviewed in three years.

His boss in Geneva expected "the markets to just continue." The distributor in UAE used to send monthly reports; now Stefan gets a quarterly order and nothing else. The Nigeria business dropped 40% in 18 months and he can't explain why — nobody can, because nobody is there. The Philippines distributor stopped responding to emails in October.

Stefan knows what went wrong. The company made a financial decision — cut overheads, reduce headcount, simplify the structure — without thinking about what happens after the cut. The knowledge left with the people. The relationships left with the people. The capability to manage, to monitor, to respond left with the people.

Now Stefan sits in an office in Geneva, looking at a dashboard of 23 red and orange flags, with no levers to pull.

What keeps Stefan awake:

• 23 markets, 2 people, no local presence
• Knowledge lost during restructuring — nobody documented how things worked
• Distributors operating as black boxes with no accountability framework
• Personally accountable for results he has no tools to influence
• Internal budget for headcount is frozen — but external consulting budget exists