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Executive Product Leadership · Interim mode
Interim Head of Product for Physical AI
An Interim Head of Product for Physical AI is a time-bounded line leader who stabilises the product function, holds day-to-day senior product authority and transfers a working decision system to a permanent owner during a vacancy, reorganisation, launch or leadership search.
The mandate exists to bridge a real operating gap, not to create dependency. It begins with the decisions that cannot wait, makes team and executive authority explicit, supports the permanent-role brief, and leaves a successor with context they can inspect rather than reconstruct.
Optional — but the more precisely you describe the decision, the more useful the reply.
- Contract
- One offer
- Mode
- Time-bounded
- Starting signal
- From €8,000/month
Parent-offer signal; interim intensity and every mandate are scoped in writing.
The situations this mode is built to relieve.
Start with the operating gap. A role title is useful only when it carries a decision that otherwise remains unowned.
The Head of Product seat is vacant or temporarily uncovered.
Product managers, engineering leads or the CEO are absorbing line-leadership work while a search, leave or notice period runs.
A launch, funding or portfolio transition cannot wait for the hire.
The business has fixed commitments and consequential product decisions, but recruitment timing is not an acceptable operating plan.
The product function needs stabilisation before recruitment.
Hiring directly into unclear authority, competing roadmaps or an unresolved organisation design would ask the successor to diagnose the role while already carrying it.
A permanent leader has been chosen but needs a controlled handover.
Strategy, decision history, team expectations and cross-functional interfaces need to transfer without freezing delivery or hiding unresolved risks.
Authority must be useful—and bounded.
Inside the mandate
What Hyperion owns
- The agreed product-function leadership remit during the transition
- Priority, roadmap and product-team operating decisions inside written authority
- Executive product reporting and cross-functional decision cadence
- Stabilisation of team interfaces, roles and unresolved product commitments
- Input to the permanent-role brief, selection and onboarding when requested
- A structured context, decision and risk handover to the successor
Boundary
What the mandate does not absorb
- Permanent organisational dependency on an external leader
- Recruitment guarantees or unilateral hiring authority
- Unbounded delivery, programme management or individual-contributor coverage
- Legal advice, certification, conformity assessment or delegated safety accountability
- A promise that every inherited commitment can or should be preserved
Operating contract
What makes the role inspectable.
- Stabilise
- Identify decisions that cannot wait, stop contradictory commitments and make temporary authority visible to the team.
- Operate
- Run the product function at the agreed intensity, with an executive cadence, decision log and explicit cross-functional interfaces.
- Prepare
- Define the enduring role, close critical capability gaps and support a permanent search or internal-successor plan without pretending recruitment is delivery.
- Transfer
- Hand over strategy, open decisions, evidence, risks, relationships and operating records against named readiness criteria.
Transition management
The exit starts on day one.
Write the transition horizon, sponsor, authority boundary and non-negotiable commitments.
Stabilise the product function and expose decisions, risks and team interfaces that were implicit.
Operate while shaping the permanent role and preparing the successor's first decision horizon.
Complete a joint handover, close or transfer open decisions, and end or rescope the interim authority explicitly.
Direct answers before a conversation.
Is an Interim Head of Product just temporary staff augmentation?
No. The mandate is defined by senior decision authority, function leadership and a transition outcome—not by filling a generic resource slot. If the need is primarily backlog capacity or programme administration, this is not the right engagement.
Can the interim leader help recruit the permanent successor?
Yes, when it is included in scope. Hyperion can help define the role, decision remit, evidence of success and onboarding plan, and can participate in assessment. The client retains hiring authority and no recruitment outcome is guaranteed.
How long does an interim mandate last?
The horizon is set by the operating gap and handover condition, not a universal duration. The engagement is reviewed at written checkpoints; a permanent search, funding event or launch may define the transition, but none is promised to complete on a fixed external timetable.
What does the successor receive?
A current strategy and priority record, the decision and evidence log, explicit team and executive interfaces, open risks and commitments, operating cadence, and a joint handover against readiness criteria agreed with the sponsor.
Bring the product leadership gap—not a polished brief.
Describe the product, the blocked decision, its deadline, the executive sponsor and the evidence currently available. Mohammed will tell you whether Hyperion is the right mandate—and when it is not.