Hiring a Business Strategy Leader EMEA

The Client

A global industrial and enterprise technology business who specialize in the highest quality, market leading network infrastructure products and associated software and services. A long and successful history in providing assembled products to industrial and enterprise environments. This client had made several successful acquisitions to bolster their product portfolio as well as building Global Innovation and Engineering Centres as they move to a solution centric model. They now require the right team to position these solutions to high growth verticals.

The Role

After a sustained period of growth our client identified an opportunity to improve the global performance of their smart city/building business. This market sits on the Enterprise side of their organisation and it was identified that our clients “Global Strategic Planning” process and team could be stronger in EMEA, both with regards to strategy but also its ultimate execution.

A role unlike any they had recruited before we were aware that this individual really needed a first class understanding of the market, the confidence to present their thoughts and ultimately influence the leadership team, with the ability to create followership and lead a multi-disciplined matrix organisation in EMEA.

A role that would contribute to the leadership team, it was clear that the successful candidate needed to demonstrate a mixture of strategy and execution, with the runway to progress into senior leadership seen as a significant bonus.

The Solution

Given the ambiguous nature of this position we started our process with a very thorough briefing meeting, designed to understand the key value that the successful candidate needed to add, the key attributes they had to possess and, the key selling points of the role. Following a thorough briefing meeting, we created assignment specifications and social media slide shares that were signed off by the client.

An extremely thorough search was conducted, focusing on locations in Germany and the Netherlands, commutable to our client’s office locations. Utilising key word bullion searches to encompass a broad selection of job titles and therefore identify all the talent capable of this role.

As we always do, we engaged with our client in a very transparent manner. Bi-weekly update calls with our client ensured the search always remained on track, and gave us the opportunity to re steer if needed. We made strong use of our candidate management portal to share our progress throughout, allowing our client to understand the market, therefore making informed decisions as we progressed through the search process.

The Result

Having identified over 90 candidates, we approached them all in a clear and consistent manner, giving enough information to gain their interest, but not enough information to give them any reason to reject the opportunity. We engaged with candidates in a thorough and proactive manner, understanding their career aspirations and then matching this opportunity to them, explaining in granular detail both the opportunity this role presents short term, in addition to the progression and upward mobility that is on offer.

Our thorough interview notes, coupled with the full transparency of market data allowed our client to make informed strategic decisions, which resulted in two of our proposed shortlisted candidates being of interest. Our client decided on who to proceed with and we supported them by leading the negotiation to a formally accepted offer.

Since, the candidate has made a strong start and is already making a positive impact.