Three forces reshaping building products leadership—and how interim leaders are filling the gap

The conversations we had at the NAHB International Builders’ Show this year offered a clear view into where building products and construction materials leaders are really focused. Across formal sessions and hallway discussions, three themes came up repeatedly: M&A-driven portfolio reshaping; a broader push for operational resilience, including reshoring; and the need to modernize commercial models as long-standing customer-sales relationships turn over and AI begins to reshape go-to-market.

Together, these forces are redefining where leadership teams invest time and capital, how plants and networks are run, and what capabilities matter most in commercial organizations. They are also stretching executive bandwidth in ways that traditional hiring cycles cannot easily address. According to this year’s High-End Independent Talent Report, requests from CEOs and presidents for interim talent are up 38% year over year across industries, underscoring how often executive teams require flexible resourcing to close execution gaps. to close execution gaps.

Portfolio reshaping has become continuous, not episodic

On the portfolio side, deal activity has become a steady drumbeat. Strategic buyers and private equity sponsors continue to acquire, carve out, and combine businesses, often while simultaneously pruning non-core assets. That puts portfolio reshaping on the agenda not just for corporate development, but for every function that has to live with the implications: integrating overlapping facilities and brands, deciding which products to prioritize, and aligning cultures that may have grown up very differently.

What we heard from leaders was telling. They talked less about "doing an integration" and more about living in a continuous state of integration. The practical challenge is that the same executives who are asked to lead integrations are also responsible for delivering the quarter. They rarely have the bandwidth—or sometimes the specific experience—to design and stand up new operating models at the pace transactions demand.

The data we see reflects this strain, as leaders seek flexible capacity and deal experience to execute on these critical initiatives. In our interim talent engagements, nearly one-fifth relate to transactions, a 54% year-over-year increase. Furthermore, M&A-specific project demand is up 60%.

Operational resilience is now a network design problem

In parallel, operational resilience has moved well beyond a traditional supply chain framework. Tariffs, transportation volatility, and shifting regional demand are prompting companies to reassess longstanding manufacturing and sourcing locations. Reshoring and nearshoring of key product lines, new or repurposed U.S. plants, and more diversified supplier strategies are all part of the response.

But each of these moves is a complex change program in its own right. Standing up a greenfield facility, restarting a mothballed plant, or redesigning an entire network around cost, risk, and service trade-offs requires a combination of capabilities. Organizations often struggle with mustering sufficient internal resources across the necessary domains—network strategy, capital deployment, procurement, manufacturing excellence. Plant leaders who have run stable operations for years are being asked to lead transformational change at speed, often without the surrounding support structure they need.

Plant leaders who have run stable operations for years are being asked to lead transformational change at speed, often without the surrounding support structure they need. It’s why, in industrials, operational excellence and post-merger integration are the most requested skills—focused on manufacturing performance, capacity, quality and reliability.

Commercial models face a generational handoff

At the same time, commercial models are under pressure. The traditional, relationship-driven sales approach that has served the industry well is being tested by channel disruption from big-box retailers and large distributors, as well as the rise of digital buying journeys. Many of the most tenured sales leaders and reps—those with decades-long customer relationships—are nearing retirement.

In their place, organizations are trying to build more data-driven, analytically enabled sales engines that integrate pricing, marketing, e-commerce and field sales. AI, better data and new tools promise sharper account targeting, more disciplined pricing and better pipeline visibility. But they also demand new ways of organizing teams, redefining roles, and measuring performance. The leaders we spoke with recognize that buying technology is not enough; they have to rethink how commercial work gets done.

That shift shows up clearly in the data. Requests for interim marketing and sales leaders rose 33% year over year, and a full 25% of all independent talent requests now touch digital, data or AI, as these capabilities are embedded into growth and commercial agendas as these capabilities are embedded into growth and commercial agendas.

Threaded through all three themes is a common question: How do you execute this level of change without overextending the leadership bench or stalling the base business?

For many building products and construction materials companies, the answer increasingly lies in how they use interim leaders and experts—a shift worth examining directly, since it changes how transformation gets resourced.

Interim leadership as a deliberate operating choice

What we heard at NAHB reflects what we see in our work with clients: Organizations are leaning on interim talent not as a last resort, but as a deliberate way to de-risk critical initiatives. Since 2021, demand for interim C-suite leaders has surged 151%, with requests for interim CFOs, CEOs, CMOs, and COOs all registering double- or triple-digit year-over-year increases—evidence that flexible leadership has become a standing operating model rather than a stopgap.

Where interims are deployed across the three themes

In the context of sustained M&A, companies are engaging interim integration leaders, finance heads, and PMO directors with multiple transactions under their belts. These leaders step in quickly to design integration blueprints, run workstreams, and keep teams aligned, allowing permanent executives to focus on strategic direction and base-business performance.

Finance remains the anchor of interim leadership demand. Interim CFOs account for 51% of all interim leadership requests, underscoring how central the finance function has become in periods of uncertainty and change.

We see the same pattern in operational resilience agendas, where interim COOs and supply chain leaders are brought in to lead network redesign, launch or repurpose plants, and embed new operating disciplines. On the commercial side, interim commercial leaders, revenue operations heads, and pricing and analytics specialists are being asked to rethink coverage models, territories, and sales enablement while keeping revenue on track.

What interims actually deliver

The value these leaders bring is more than simply added capacity. Because they are working against fixed timelines and have seen similar challenges across multiple organizations, they can move faster on decisions that might otherwise linger and help internal teams avoid common pitfalls. They also serve as a bridge between today's organization and the capabilities it will need in the future, helping build muscle in areas like data-driven commercial execution, network strategy, or post-merger integration that may not yet be fully developed internally.

Because these roles are designed around specific outcomes and timelines, they give companies a way to move faster than traditional hiring processes allow and to course-correct more easily if conditions change.

What this means for CEOs, PE sponsors, and CHROs

Across M&A, operational resilience, and commercial transformation, the differentiator is less whether leaders see the need to act and more how effectively they resource and sequence that action.

Nearly a quarter of all independent talent engagements are tied to transformation initiatives—with demand from PMO and transformation functions up 37% year over year—and another 17% relate to transactions, highlighting how often companies use interim leaders in precisely these high-stakes moments. highlighting how often companies use interim leaders in precisely these high-stakes moments.

In a sector where assets are long lived but market conditions are increasingly fluid, the organizations that build more intentional strategies around interim leadership will be better positioned to translate today’s themes—constant portfolio evolution, heightened resilience expectations, and commercial reinvention—into sustained advantage.

About the author

Yahya Khan (ykhan@heidrick.com) is a principal focused on interim solutions in Industrials; he is based in the Houston office.