United kingdom
Recruitment of Chairman & Chief Executive – Large Transportation Infrastructure Project
5 May 2009
The Challenge
This rail infrastructure project is jointly sponsored by two public sector bodies; one central government and one local government. It is funded from a number of public and private sector sources including the airport that it will serve and financial district that it will provide better connections to. It will also serve to be a catalyst for urban regeneration and to reduce congestion on other established public transport service. In summary, it is a project with numerous and diverse stakeholder interests. The project had already been successfully steered through the outline design stage and had reached planning approval with government funding available. The move to implementation required a different company structure, including the replacement of the existing Executive Chairman with a Non-Executive Chairman and separate Chief Executive.
The Approach
The recruitment brief called for a Chairman with excellent stakeholder management skills and a Chief Executive with a proven track record in the delivery of large-scale infrastructure projects. Both searches required a huge amount of stakeholder consultation. The Chief Executive assignment required a search to include candidates associated with current and recently completed large-scale infrastructure projects world-wide.
The Result
A time phased approach to the work ensured that the newly appointed Non-Executive Chairman was identified in time to take part in the recruitment of the Chief Executive. Both appointments have been extremely well received by the stakeholders and the media.
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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