Recruitment of Divisional Managing Director - Surveillance Systems

The Challenge

Following the appointment of a new Chief Executive, his strategic review concluded that the business needed to be restructured into three new divisions.

Although a number of business unit managers were potential candidates for the new Divisional Managing Director roles, the Chief Executive wanted to benchmark them against “best of breed” from the external job market.

Odgers Berndtson was asked to conduct an executive search covering all three vacant positions and to assist the Chief Executive in choosing the most appropriate appointee for each; whether internal or external.

The Approach

As part of a comprehensive brief taking process Odgers Berndtson identified the generic requirements common to all three roles and the separate specific more requirements of each role. This resulted in a shortlist of six external candidates for the three jobs, with some candidates being suitably qualified for more than one of the jobs.

Surveillance (CCTV systems integration) in the UK is a market containing few corporate entities and many owner-managed SMEs. It is therefore a small market for corporate management talent. This impediment was identified at the brief-taking stage and resulted in an agreement with the client that Odgers Berndtson should explore other sectors where the common theme would be the provision of integrated systems solutions to customers in appropriate industry sectors.

The Result

Three finalists were selected from the six external candidates. These three were further assessed by Odgers Berndtson and the client together, against five internal candidates.

Two of the three appointees were external candidates. They came from other (non-surveillance) systems integration sectors serving the same industries as the client.

Last Word from the Appointee

“It was refreshing to be part of a recruitment process were the consultant could see past my sector experience and recognize the transferability of my skill-set into a completely different sector and application area.”

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 Electronics & Precision Engineering Practice specialises in the recruitment of executive roles in a broad range of engineered component, OEM product, systems integration and service companies.

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