BUSINESS MENTORING

Andrew continues to mentor a number of well-known senior executives in mainland Europe, the USA and the Middle East over many years, as well as fast-rising talent in leading FTSE companies in the UK. He has taught career management at business schools across the world from Harvard to Singapore and served as a long-term board director at Manchester Business School. The author of the internationally regarded Smart Moves, he has recently revisited the topic of career management in a book titled: Your Career: An Overdue Conversation.

EXECUTIVE SEARCH

We are an executive search boutique with global reach and unique experience deriving from 35 years of unparalleled geographic and cultural exposure.

Conceptually, executive search hasn’t changed much since the 1940s, when its importance grew in step with increased demand for experienced business leaders. This made it necessary to look for talent beyond the confines of corporations. Yet, although executive search has evolved into a complex service requiring comprehensive understanding of clients and the structure of their organisations, strategy and culture, it has lost its way.

It goes without saying that today, senior and board-level talent has never been more crucial or in such great demand: the growing BRIC economies are both producing talent and syphoning it out of the OECD. But successful recruitment should not depend on names on databases – in many cases this has given rise to lazy work. Shortlists consisting of ‘who we know’ instead of ‘the best in the world’ are simply not good enough. Moreover, once identified, all shortlisted candidates should be in a position to say ‘yes’, having already confirmed their interest at each stage of the selection process. Executive search is not a beauty parade.

We have a reputation for strong process and eclectic thinking, achieving results previously considered unachievable. We work closely with the boards of FTSE, private equity-owned businesses, and large privately-owned companies, as well as not-for-profit organisations. Through our research, we identify suitable talent for senior roles – not just those on our database – in order to embrace those who may not have been visible or eligible five years previously.

As the acknowledged experts in the search for diversity in leadership, the candidates we select are diverse, proven, and capable of adapting to the rapid pace of business transformation; they not only possess the requisite technical expertise, but emotional intelligence, too. The pool of experienced and well-educated female talent, for example, is not always immediately visible, so the need for rigorous exploration and investigation requires a search proposition that we are uniquely experienced and qualified to deliver. These processes enable all candidates’ performances to be benchmarked against cultural fit within our clients' organisations and industries. This is what has built, and sustains, our reputation.