A budget is not a P&L. Say which one you are handing over.

The two jobs do not need the same person, and they do not produce the same habits. Someone who has only ever answered for a spend will optimise what spending shows: cost per lead, reach, budget consumed on time. None of that is wrong. None of it is profit.

Four of my own mandates, sorted without flattery

I applied that rule to my own career before applying it to anyone else's. The result is one real P&L, two margin accounts and one spend governance.

A real P&L. At Cob Editions, from 2013 to 2021, I held the full income statement. Seventy-seven months of actual monthly figures, from May 2013 to September 2019, with two loss-making years that I chose to carry.

A margin account. In a premium beauty retail group, in 2024 and 2025, I ran gross margin, from 62.8 % to 66.9 %. Admin costs and the cost of debt were not mine. That sentence protects me as much as the number does.

A second margin account. In an advertising agency in the Indian Ocean, I carried gross margin and new business: 280,000 euros won in 2013, 51 % of the agency's gross margin that year. The group held finance, legal and treasury. Margin, yes. P&L, no.

Spend governance. At Bboxx, from 2022 to 2024, I consolidated and arbitrated the marketing budgets of nine countries, 648,578 dollars in 2024, built on a group template I imposed. That is governance of spend. Calling it a P&L would be false, and anyone who checks would see it in five minutes.

Why the word matters when you hire

A founder who hands over a budget and expects a balance will be disappointed, and the person hired will not understand why. The misunderstanding is written on day one, in the contract, long before the first campaign.

A part-time mandate makes it harder. A P&L needs continuity and a seat in the decisions taken on the days you are not there. Two days a week can carry one, but only if it was designed that way.

Five clauses, written before the start, never after

1. The price. Without a hand on it, the rest is cosmetic. I learnt that one the expensive way, and I wrote it down in 866 euros, one sale.

2. Revenue targets, not activity targets. A revenue line with my name on it, not a cost per acquisition.

3. Named cost lines. The ones I carry and the ones I do not. The list protects as much as it commits.

4. One monthly file. Revenue and its cost side by side, presented by me. That is what makes the claim checkable two years later.

5. The reporting line. To whoever carries the number, the CEO or the CFO. A marketing function that reports to communications never holds a P&L, whatever the contract says.

If you are about to hire a marketing head, full time or not, I recommend deciding which of the two you are handing over before the first day. Then write it in the contract.