The UK is a leader in the area of interim management, however the rest of the world is catching up, says Jason Atkinson, managing director of interim management provider Russam Interim.

Speaking to Recruiter shortly after the launch of Russam International, Atkinson said that by 2020 the global market for interims would reach $30bn (£20bn). “Interim management is a great British export,” he said. Although international assignments make up around 11% of the overall UK interim market, “we see 15-25% of business coming from overseas by 2012”.

Russam International is working in partnership with The Taplow Group, an international executive search and interim management group operating in 27 countries. Its Norwegian chief executive, Hans Holter-Sorensen, told Recruiter that although all the partner firms within The Taplow Group work within executive search, interim management is now becoming more important than three or four years ago. “In the past, due to the way the workforce was viewed, our firms did not think it was worth pursuing interim management,” Holter-Sorensen explained. “With this partnership with Russam, there will be a focus on interim in 19 countries [within Taplow].”

Russam is tasked with building a global database of interim managers, which will be open to all of Taplow’s member firms. 

Atkinson told Recruiter: “We think this is unique. Interim is very different from search — it’s fast-moving. Within four days we’ve got a shortlist and at the end of 10 days we’ve got an interim starting.”