Case Study: CIO Appointement
Our client, a FTSE 100 company, is one of the world’s largest businesses with complex operations around the globe. Their longstanding Group CIO had been due to retire for some time and for nearly a year, another major global search firm had been seeking his replacement. This search was being co-managed by Partners in their London and Chicago offices. Amidst the confusion of divided responsibility, the client lost confidence in their ability to deliver a result and we were asked to take over the search with a clear instruction to fill the brief as quickly as possible.
Through spending time with the incumbent and the key figures within the business, we quickly understood the challenges of the role and the skills and experiences necessary for the new CIO to be successful. We rapidly defined a targeted search strategy, identifying candidates in our client’s sector as well as those in other complex, technology intensive, global businesses of genuine scale.
As a result of an intensive global research exercise, within a month, we had developed a shortlist of qualified and potentially available candidates. In order to achieve this within such a short timeframe, we travelled extensively, interviewing candidates in the US, Continental Europe as well as in the UK. The eventual shortlist included two candidates from the US, two from Europe and one in the UK. We prepared detailed reports on each of the candidates, highlighting their experience and capabilities as well conducting thorough referencing on them. These individuals met the client and the two final candidates were interviewed by the CEO and the Executive Committee to explore their fit with the business as well as their functional and commercial leadership.
The candidate who emerged as the favourite was a US citizen who was the CIO of an iconic industrial business. It became clear that we would need to persuade him and his family to relocate to London. As the interviews progressed, we made sure that his wife was engaged in the process and arranged for her to see houses and schools in London as well as meeting some other people within the business who had already been through the relocation process. Once our client had decided to make an offer to this individual, we managed the salary and relocation negotiations on their behalf and successfully concluded the search within three months.
