Global expansion. Don't ruin your only chance for a right start by wrong choice

Executive summary

An Australian software company was looking to expand its business on a worldwide basis. They needed to  hire a leader who could run a team and rapidly grow their sales and revenues in North America. 

The company specialized in enterprise software for big data and analytics, and they were expanding into cyber-security as well. Thus, they were looking for someone who had both big data and cyber-security experience. Cyber-security is a hot market, so enticing someone to move from an established company to  one just entering that market was going to be a challenge. 

Thanks to one search, the client successfully filled two positions - the CEO of North American and Senior Vice President of Government. The success was due to a  combination of being deeply and directly involved in working with all of the candidates and the client's confidence in our final recommendation, which prioritized a better cultural fit over industry expertise.

Main challenges

High touch, low volume. What is the benefit for the client? 

We focus on personal relationship with our clients. Even as a part of a global alliance we’re a “high touch, low volume” type of firm and that's why we're able to do a deep and unique search each time. 

While larger companies may acquire the business and then turn over the search to more junior people, we take a different path. 

Our approach

1.

Two of our senior partners were working very closely with the Chief Operating Officer and Global Chief  Human Resource Officer from the beginning. We interviewed them extensively to know exactly  what they wanted in their North American leader: the key attributes, skills, and experiences necessary to be successful in this position.  

2.

We spoke to the client at length about the company’s culture and environment. 

3.

We created a target list of relevant companies in similar and tangential industries from which we started our search. Altogether, we carried out our search over four months. We had our first slate of candidates ready to present to them within three weeks. Incidentally, our final candidate came from this first 

Guiding the client to the right decision, step by step

Our goal is that every candidate we present we believe could get the job, so that the final decision really comes down to ensuring the right personality, character, and cultural fit with the client, and that just takes time on the client side. 

At the end of the search, we got down to two finalists. One of them was a person with deep cyber-security experience, which is where the client thought they were taking the company at the time. However, during the negotiation process between Australia, us and this candidate, we became convinced that the candidate was not a good cultural fit with our client.

Last minute decision counts

We decided to go with our intuition and strongly recommended the other candidate with less cyber-security experience, but who we believed to be the much better personality and cultural fit with the company.

Because we had taken the time to learn so much about our client and their work environment, and we had been deeply and directly involved in working with all of the  candidates, they trusted our input when we strongly recommended a particular candidate. In the end, that person is still with them today, more than five years later.

The outcome?
Twice the success 

The client was so pleased with the both the process and the outcome of the search that they decided to hire an additional candidate who we had earlier presented. This second position, Senior Vice President of Government, was to focus on developing business relationships with the U.S. government.