Reading the last few posts on this blog, a pattern shows up: ViDA’s new OSS scheme, the €3 customs duty, the recast Union Customs Code, the European Product Act. Each is a legal text, and each is, eventually, an operational problem — registrations to file, systems to reconfigure, teams across finance, legal, IT and logistics to align on a deadline none of them chose.
That gap, between understanding a regulation and actually being ready for it, is where most indirect tax projects run into trouble. Not because the rules are misunderstood, but because nobody owned the execution.
What 22 years inside Shell, Air France, Atos and Avalara actually taught me
Across more than two decades in indirect tax and customs — inside an energy major, an airline, a global IT services group, and a tax technology company — the common thread was never the subject matter alone. VAT, customs classification, OSS/IOSS, and cross-border e-commerce compliance are technically different problems, but structurally they demand the same thing: someone who can turn a regulatory deadline into a project plan, get finance, legal, IT and operations to move on the same timeline, and be accountable for the result landing on time.
That combination — deep indirect tax expertise plus real project management discipline — is rarer than either skill on its own. A lot of tax advice stops at the memo. A lot of project management stops at the Gantt chart, without the technical judgment to know which steps in a VAT or customs rollout actually carry risk.
Interim VAT and customs leadership, not just advisory
An interim VAT director or interim customs director mandate exists to solve a problem a permanent hire usually can’t: a business needs senior, hands-on leadership on a defined project — a multi-country VAT registration rollout, a customs restructuring ahead of a new EU regime, an OSS/IOSS implementation, a compliance function stood up from scratch after a rapid expansion — without the multi-month recruitment cycle, and without carrying that headcount once the project is done.
It also brings something a permanent internal hire structurally can’t: an outside view. Coming in for a defined mission means no internal politics to navigate, no incentive to preserve the status quo, and full attention on the one outcome the mandate was set up to deliver.
Inside the EU, and beyond it
Indirect tax and customs projects increasingly don’t respect the EU’s own borders. A non-EU seller navigating IOSS, the new €3 customs duty and the incoming Union Customs Code needs the same project discipline as an EU business managing multi-country VAT registrations, OSS reporting, or a customs classification review across several jurisdictions at once. The regulatory detail differs; the operational discipline required to get it right on the first deadline does not.
This is the operational advisory work CB Consulting & Management is built around: multi-country VAT compliance and EU customs compliance projects, led by an interim director who has run this kind of mandate before — inside the EU and cross-border — not an outside advisor handing over a report and leaving the execution to someone else.
If you’re looking at a VAT or customs project that needs someone to actually run it, get in touch.