You have a compelling opening. The scope is real, the mandate is serious, and the right leader could change the trajectory of the business. But the location is costing you candidates, and every conversation ends the same way. This is how Intellerati solved that problem in 16 business days.
Case Study Scenario
President Executive Search
A case study of a President Executive Search. Intellerati was retained to help an advertising agency recruit its next President. Our client was one of the leading marketing communications agencies in the world. It needed to find a President to lead its digital marketing team based in Detroit, Michigan. The location was a turn-off to many candidates. The Rust Belt city was under significant economic duress with the highest foreclosure rate in the Nation.
Moreover, the ideal executive had to be capable of managing a team of more than 200 professionals, as well as spearheading the digital marketing initiatives for one of our client’s most important accounts — one of the big 3 automakers. The executive had to be capable of providing the agency’s largest Detroit client with the vision needed to turn its struggling automobile manufacturing business around.
The Challenge
It was far easier to entice most top executives to move away from Detroit than to commit to packing up and making the Motor City their family’s new home.
Actionable Intelligence
Intellerati uncovered a critical piece of intelligence from several candidates: we learned of a great digital marketing firm under duress. The firm was experiencing significant growing pains at its offices across the country. As a result, the company’s executives felt overworked and unappreciated, assigned too many client accounts as the firm scaled in size without the necessary manpower. Executives there told us that they didn’t feel they had the opportunity to make a real difference for their clients because they lacked the time and resources. In other words, it wouldn’t take much to convince one of their executives to leave. Intellerati then applied a cultural filter asking, “Which executives from the target company might be more willing to make a move to Detroit?” As we examined the backgrounds of executives working at the newly prioritized target company, we found our answer – an ad executive who grew up in a similar industrial city: Buffalo, New York.
The Results
The Winning Candidate in Just 16 Business Days. In just four weeks, Intellerati developed six screened, qualified and interested candidates for the President role, one of whom was subsequently hired into an alternative role at no additional cost to the client. In addition, Intellerati delivered comprehensive research profiling 130 executives in the digital marketing space, which our client could leverage to build out their internal search function.
Performance Metrics
- 2 Business Days: Target candidate profiles
- 5 Business Days: First candidate Presented
- 16 business Days: Presented winning candidate hired as President
- Bonus Hire: 2nd hire at no additional cost of a strong successor to the President
- Bonus Research: 130 Senior Executives Profiles
What the Hire Produced
The ROI on this placement exceeded $30 million.
The President was selected to lead the team that saved a $25 million luxury automotive account. He delivered a two-year, $30 million project for a leading US automaker on time and within budget, a result later cited as a contributing factor in the company’s turnaround and return to profitability. He rebuilt the agency’s delivery infrastructure, taking net profitability from 15 percent to over 22 percent and generating more than $8 million in new service-line revenue. After three years as agency President, he was promoted to Country President.
The Lesson
The right candidate for a difficult role rarely looks like the obvious candidate. They are usually somewhere else, working under conditions that have made them ready to move, for reasons that have nothing to do with compensation and everything to do with fit.
When your opening is strong but your location is working against you, the answer is not a bigger candidate pool. It is better intelligence about who is actually ready to say yes, and why.
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