Broadband Solutions European Sales Director | Case Study

The Client

Our client is an industry leading global provider in broadband solutions, operating across the Americas, EMEA and APAC. The client had recently undergone acquisitions and was integrating new entities into its European sales division. Despite strong overall performance, the European team faced structural and cultural challenges that threatened future growth which is why they wanted to hire the above leader into the company.

The Role

Reporting to the VP of Global Sales, this role carried responsibility for seven direct reports and oversight of a diverse, geographically dispersed team. The position required a people centric leader that is capable of driving a large[1]scale transformation across multiple areas. It included a cultural integration, stabilisation of the groups operations and aligning the team with strategic objectives coming from the board level in the US.

The Business Challenge

The European sales division was fragmented due to: A general structural misalignment across the sales territories. They were lacking clarity and not necessarily operating with the board’s direction in mind, it has created some overlapping responsibilities in the team and a lack of knowledge sharing across the business units and different businesses in the group.

There was also a Cultural integration issue, with the group having a strong M&A strategy the team was made of legacy employees from 4 different companies that had created a siloed approach. The team has been resisting portfolio changes and unified strategies which is why we needed a strong people-centric leader that could empower the teams to work more collaboratively. Some gaps in the existing leadership for the region had also started to create an issue.

The existing leaders had strong product knowledge but struggled to sell across the broader portfolio and adapt to new approaches. This has meant that there was not a unified sales approach in place and money was being left on the table with clients as the team would win business but lacked the knowledge of all the products in the suite through the M&A strategy to effectively sell more.

Finally, there was a real risk of underperformance, particularly within recently acquired entities, jeopardizing revenue targets. Previous attempts to hire leaders from unrelated industries had failed, making this search business critical.

The Solution

Collingwood implemented a comprehensive executive search strategy. We conducted a broad talent map across Key European Markets, we explored the top talent in the space across the UK, DACH, BeNeLux, Iberian and Italian markets. This approach allowed us to build a robust longlist in all the regions where our client had a strong physical presence.

Within this longlist, we carried out strong candidate profiling, we really focused on the leadership style of the new hire, they needed to have high EQ and the ability to drive that cultural change as well as the relevant industry experience. We needed a leader that could walk the walk but also one that didn’t need to be “the main man” in every negotiation and close, developing the team was more important.

Our approach to scaling this longlist started with direct competitors in the passive components sector, then we expanded into active components and adjacent sectors like TelCo, Cable and Broadband. For this search, C. 80% of the candidates were truly passive, so we had to utilise our networks to drive a high number of referrals.

The Result

In summary, the following process took place:

103 Potential candidates identified following initial research undertaken

15 Targeted candidates CV’s received

9 Candidates interviewed by Chris Mayers

7 Candidates interviewed by client

3 Candidates taken through to final stage

1 Candidate offered

We managed to create a shortlist that had a real range of experience, both from an industry perspective but also from a leadership perspective as well. We presented a shortlist of 5 to the client and there were also 2 internal applicants that we interviewed to create a list of 7. From this list, 4 were interviewed at the 2nd stage and 3 went to the final round of interviews. A further stage was added to this to decide between two strong candidates that they were happy to offer either in the end. It resulted on our client hiring that strong people leader they needed but one that also comes with a lot of relevant industry experience.