Case Study
Overview:
Our client, a leading global manufacturer of food processing equipment with headquarters based in Europe, was in the process of completing strategic plans for continued, accelerated expansion of the company's North American market when the President of the North American subsidiary announced his decision to retire. The new strategy called for a restructuring of the sales force. Rather than being organized within regions throughout the US and Canada, the subsidiary's sales executives would henceforth be responsible for commercially focused target markets.
Challenge:
While searching for a replacement of the outgoing President and General Manager, The Stevenson Group faced two major challenges:
- An individual would have to be recruited with the ability to move the combined US and Canada subsidiary forward to an increased leadership position in the marketplace. This would require successfully targeting and penetrating new accounts in their largest and potentially most promising business segment. An executive would be needed with, considerable experience with a major food processing company, a strong sales and marketing background and good understanding of technology. Most important, however, this individual would have the ability to lead and mentor the team while implementing any necessary organizational and strategic changes in line with the company's established business culture and values.
- To lead a small but rapidly growing subsidiary of a corporation based in Europe, the successful candidate would further need to have a good understanding of European business practices and bring cultural sensitivity and adaptability to the task of interacting with, and reporting to a European CEO and Board of Directors.
Approach:
Our research was focused on the food processing industry as a whole, and we identified potential candidates within the machinery manufacturing, distribution and end-user segments, with a particular emphasis on foreign-based companies and those with strong ties to the global market.
Our comprehensive recruiting effort resulted in several highly qualified candidates and led us to the one who was selected and successfully brought on board.
The new President had spent the first ten years of his career in operations and manufacturing at one of the largest leading companies in the industry and then successfully transitioned to a fast-paced, highly entrepreneurial distribution company, where he was in charge of strategic business development and sales and marketing. He was known as a strong leader with a high level of energy who was now ready and well prepared to take on his first general management role.