Possible to escape scapegoating?

From 15 years in leadership with a stellar reputation and track record to a short series of COVID-related job losses, I finally landed a General Management/Director (dual role) position interstate Australia with an American company. As you all know, senior leadership positions are very hard to come by, especially in the current state of the world.

The team, let alone the company, is a total mess. I'm talking sales guys on just short of my salary not bringing in any sales in over 12 months, entitled engineers, service and support staff who haven't serviced customers in 3 years with 3 year contracts, servicing customers without contracts etc.

2 months into the gig, VP gets me to cull 40% of the team without any consultation or choice in the matter. To make matters worse, it was off the back of incorrect data by the 'golden boy' who was in my position before me, who made a $7M loss, had multiple HR complaints and safety incidents and who then was in limbo for 6 months with a retention bonus, 'working from home' in another state and still getting paid significantly more than me. The whole cull was a total massacre without a plan. When the local team and I questioned the vision and strategy moving forward, the VPs words were "the cement is still drying on that one".

You all know what happens next. Morale has fallen off a cliff, VP completely ignores the business and another 10% jump the sinking ship. No support from my manager (who reports to VP) whatsoever. My manager 'helps' by constantly requesting midnight meetings (my time, due to AU US time difference) to keep him updated on customer tickets etc. Some departments have no-one. I've even lost my administration staff so I'm stretched beyond - doing my GM/Director of Ops job whilst doing tasks that range from fielding all the reception calls to stocking and servicing the office coffee machines etc.

Then due to the downsize, we're hit with an relocation which I do nearly completely on my own as the team are already drowning in covering all the work of their former colleagues.

I perform crisis management for 9 months and despite navigating the greatest challenges in the local team's history, we still managed to achieve 50% over budget, 20% YoY aftermarket revenue and cut SG&A costs by $300k.

I was completely fine with all that, it's what I do best - turn basketcases into high performing teams. Here's where it gets ugly for me. Bar the constant micromanagement and nitpicking from my boss, when I share the above 2024 results with the leadership team I not only get shot down immediately, I very directly get shafted. VP awards all the team's successes to another team altogether and said these successes "have many fathers" but all the failures of the team - especially with the severe decline in service, fall on me. Now remember, the service team was cut to bare bones and the remaining walked. And on top of that, boss pushes out communication to all the customers notifying them of the cull and suddenly they all rushed in with 3 years worth of complaints under their belt knowing there's only a few staff left so that they could be the first to get support. But since I'm the lucky bastard that's sitting in the chair - they are making it look like complaints only appeared since I arrived on scene.

So the VP who literally won an award for spearheading this innovative business is completely butchering it and I'm charged with polishing the turd whilst being scapegoated for its "total failure". The 'golden boy' from yesteryear saw his relevancy in the company flash before his eyes and got into anyone with influence's ear (really knows how to play the game, manage up, and a very good sweet talker) and now I suspect I'm going to get fired or relegated for what they deem as 'underperformance'. They want my direct reports (managers) gone too so even though we were the ones that held the whole unit together for a year, I was forced by my boss to mark them as underperforming and now it's my head they want. The entire time I tried to play the game and manage up, but I could tell the tides were turning a few months ago and now I'm stuck in the rip. My morale has tanked and there's nothing out there in my industry (been looking the past month and scanning for the past year).

Any advice appreciated.

P.s. Ignore the account name, using wife's account.