Interim CEO-style leadership for mid-market SaaS, software, and AI when Product, GTM, and operations must move as one.
If you are here, you already know what interim leadership is. The only question that matters is whether the interim leader you choose can reduce execution risk fast, while making the business more coherent and more valuable.
Clarivia’s interim leadership is built for mid-market software environments where performance lives or dies at the intersection of Product truth, go-to-market reality, and operating discipline. That intersection is where fragmentation quietly destroys value: positioning drifts, the roadmap becomes a negotiation, pipeline quality deteriorates, churn rises, and teams compensate with heroics and noise.
Gérard Métrailler is an operator (CEO, BU GM, EVP) with 25+ years in software, SaaS, and AI-adjacent businesses, including leading global P&Ls, building GTM systems across North America, EMEA, and APAC, and repeatedly converting complex portfolios into focused, monetizable platforms.
What Clarivia brings as your interim leader
A proven “Product × GTM × cadence” integration engine
Many executives can run Product. Many can run Sales. Fewer can integrate them under real constraints, with the urgency and decisiveness required when the board clock is running.
Clarivia’s strength is making the business coherent again by forcing the same truth across functions: what customers actually value, what the product can reliably deliver, how the commercial motion should behave, and what operating rhythm turns that into predictable outcomes. This is not about adding process. It is about restoring decision velocity and accountability across the interfaces where value leaks most.
Gérard’s background spans product strategy, marketing and positioning, global multi-channel commercialization, and operating cadence design, with repeated exposure to the exact failure modes that show up in mid-market software transitions.
SaaS transformation without the typical “migration penalty”
If your business is navigating a shift from perpetual to subscription-based models, the risk is real. It is economic and behavioral. You can easily trigger a revenue dip, damage trust, and lose the installed base you need for compounding expansion.
Clarivia brings direct experience leading large-scale perpetual-to-subscription migrations, including pricing and packaging design, entitlement transitions, renewals, and churn-reduction mechanisms. The work focuses on preserving cash flow and credibility while building the systems that make SaaS repeatable.
Multi-geo GTM pattern recognition (including how Europe actually works)
Mid-market companies often underestimate how quickly international complexity turns into execution drag. “One global playbook” is rarely true in practice.
Clarivia brings hands-on experience scaling revenue across North America, EMEA, and APAC, including adapting packaging, pricing, channel strategy, and messaging to local realities. Gérard has led global teams and explicitly delivered GTM turnarounds, including driving 29% year-over-year growth in EMEA in a technical market by breaking silos between Product and Sales.
Pragmatic AI and measurable leverage, not theater
AI only matters when it changes unit economics, product experience, or operating efficiency in a measurable way. Clarivia’s posture is pragmatic: identify the few use cases that create leverage, set governance that protects quality and risk, and execute with human-in-the-loop discipline.
This is especially relevant when AI becomes a distraction in Product and Marketing and creates more narrative than value. Clarivia enables the translation of AI into practical decisions: what to ship, where to instrument, how to support, and what to stop.
PE-grade value creation and M&A integration muscle
In sponsor-backed environments, “progress” is not activity. It is value creation you can defend. Clarivia supports PE sponsors and strategy consultants with operator-led diligence, integration playbooks, and execution systems that survive leadership transitions.
Gérard’s track record includes value-creation work contributing to more than $7B in exits, as well as experience in buy-and-build dynamics, diligence red flags, and 30/60/90 integration planning.
What this looks like in the first 30 days
The early objective is simple: reduce uncertainty, restore a credible operating rhythm, and reconnect Product and GTM to the same reality so execution becomes predictable.
Typically, the first month produces:
- A board-aligned mandate with explicit decision rights and measurable outcomes.
- A tight set of priorities that reflect actual constraints, not optimistic capacity assumptions.
- A clarified product narrative that GTM can sell honestly and repeatedly.
- A commercial reality check anchored in pipeline quality, win-loss patterns, packaging/pricing fit, and retention signals.
- An operating cadence (weekly rhythm and scorecard) that surfaces risks early and forces decisions without drama.
This is intentionally designed to be transferable, so a permanent leader inherits a working system rather than a personality-dependent turnaround.
Where Clarivia is an excellent fit
Clarivia tends to be most valuable when you recognize at least one of these patterns:
- Your product and sales narratives are diverging, and it is starting to show up in churn, discounting, or roadmap chaos.
- Your roadmap is overloaded, and engineering throughput is being consumed by interrupts, escalations, and rework rather than a coherent sequence of bets.
- Your GTM motion is not wrong, but it is misaligned with current market realities across segments, regions, and channels.
- You are in a PE or board-driven transition where speed matters, but credibility matters more.
How we work with boards and sponsors
Boards and sponsors do not need more reporting. They need fewer surprises and clearer tradeoffs.
Clarivia runs a direct rhythm: a clean mandate, a small number of measurable outcomes, early risk surfacing, and a cadence of decisions. Gérard’s operating model is explicitly designed to balance growth and profitability across global P&Ls, including Rule-of-50-style efficiency work without sacrificing product velocity.
Engagement patterns
Interim CEO / GM (embedded) when the business needs a single accountable operator to re-integrate Product, GTM, and operations rapidly.
Interim execution leadership (COO-style) when the CEO remains in place, but cross-functional cadence, prioritization, and accountability are failing at the interfaces.
Transition and integration leadership when you are managing a succession window, a carve-out, or a buy-and-build integration where the cost of drift is high.
Need help now?
If you need an interim leader who can quickly diagnose what is actually happening, make hard tradeoffs without theatrics, and rebuild the Product × GTM × operating system so performance becomes predictable again, Clarivia is built for that.
Practical FAQs
How quickly can you step in?
Fast, once the mandate and decision rights are clear. Speed comes from clarity, not from rushing.
How do you work with the board or PE owners?
Directly, with a simple rhythm: mandate, measures, risks, and progress. No surprises, no theater.
What do you need from us to succeed?
Board alignment on the mandate, clear authority boundaries, access to real performance data, and willingness to make a small number of decisive tradeoffs.
How long do engagements usually last?
Often 3 to 9 months, depending on whether succession is in flight and how much operating model work is required.