United kingdom
Recruitment of a Chief Executive – Large Rail Maintenance and Upgrade Organisation
30 April 2009
The Challenge
The Company is a joint-venture SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle), set up to provide rail maintenance and upgrade services to a major metro operator, under a 30-year PPP contract. The Chief Executive had resigned and was serving twelve-months’ notice in accordance with his contract. He was keen to take up his new position elsewhere and the Board was keen to replace him as quickly as possible in order to maintain momentum.
The Approach
The brief taking process identified that candidates might come from a wide range of backgrounds where a range of experience including the management of a large workforce, large scale procurement and a high-profile multistakeholder environment could be found. A long-list review process carried out at an early stage served to explore a range of possibilities and achieved convergence on a short-list of candidates to which the joint-venture partners and other stakeholders could agree.
The Result
The search began in January 2009 and the appointment was announced in April 2009. The appointee was formerly the COO of a TOC (Train Operating Company). He brought to the role a broad range of rail-related project and stakeholder management experience. His appointment was well received by our client, its customers and numerous stakeholders, in both public and private sector.
About Odgers Berndtson
Odgers Berndtson is the UK’s leading executive recruitment firm. It operates internationally across 51 offices, of which 8 are regionally distributed throughout the UK.
Offices are located in London (West End & City), Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Cardiff. It comprises a broad range of dedicated practices offering specialist executive recruitment skills by sector and by job-function. The Infrastructure Practice specialises in the recruitment of executive roles in a broad range of infrastructure-related sectors including construction, consulting engineering, transportation and utilities.
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