Clarify the mandate before redesigning the team.
Titles differ across organizations. Before assuming what the promotion means, agree with your manager on the commercial outcomes, planning horizon, budget authority, and people decisions that come with the role. Identify the commitments already made to customers and the board.
Write down where you decide, where you recommend, and where another function has the final call. A revenue target does not automatically give you authority over pricing, inventory, hiring, or marketing. Those boundaries need explicit agreement.
- What must improve, and what must remain dependable during the transition?
- Which decisions can I make without escalation?
- Which commitments require finance, operations, or marketing to agree?
- What will my manager use to judge progress at the next review?
Move from solving every issue to building decision quality.
If every meaningful decision still returns to you, a larger title can create a larger bottleneck. Work with your managers on the information, authority, and escalation rules they need. Delegation should describe the outcome and constraints, not simply transfer a task.
The following distinctions are planning prompts. Your actual scope may combine responsibilities from both columns.
| Responsibility | A narrower operating focus | A broader VP focus |
|---|---|---|
| Sales performance | What does this team need to deliver? | Where should the business place its commercial resources? |
| People | How do I help this person execute? | How do managers make good decisions without waiting for me? |
| Cross-functional work | How do I resolve this handoff? | Which recurring tradeoff needs a shared decision rule? |
| Forecast | Is the territory forecast credible? | What assumptions and risks should change the business plan? |
Redesign the week around the new responsibility.
Review the last two weeks of your calendar. Mark the meetings that require your judgment, those that develop a manager, and those you attend because you have always attended. Retain the first two deliberately; challenge the third.
Build a review that connects results to decisions. Ask managers to arrive with the issue, evidence, options, and recommendation. When a decision is made, record who owns the action and when the team will review it. Avoid turning the new routine into another reporting exercise.
- Commercial review: What changed in the outlook, and which assumption needs attention?
- Manager conversations: What decision can the manager own with clearer boundaries?
- Cross-functional review: Which dependency needs agreement before the next commitment?
- Protected thinking time: What issue needs a decision before it becomes urgent?
A one-page transition brief
Prepare a short brief with five headings: mandate, decision rights, key relationships, three priorities, and work to delegate. Share it with the person who owns your mandate and revise the points where your expectations differ.
At the end of the first month, compare the brief with your actual calendar and decisions. If the new priorities never receive time, the transition exists mainly on paper. Decide which work must move, stop, or receive a clearer owner.
Work on the transition with an experienced advisor.
Matthew Holthaus brings commercial experience from the field at HEINEKEN USA to EVP of Sales & Marketing. The Next Level Engagement provides 90 days of private advisory, weekly conversations, and a practical action plan around the responsibility you are taking on.