Executive Search Snapshots
(a partial list)
Kilpatrick Stockton
Company: KS is one of the largest and most well-respected law firms in Atlanta, and consistently ranks in the top 100 full-service law firms nationally.
Situation: The firm’s COO was on the leading edge of law firm leadership by attempting to have KS be run even more like a business than an old-time partnership. A half-dozen Practice Chairpersons were running large practices within the firm as de facto division presidents; yet, they were elected into those roles without regard to deep or broad functional expertise.
The COO reasoned that creating a new position of high-caliber Business Managers (non-lawyers) for each of the practice areas would introduce a much-needed level of business acumen and accountability. Because hiring Business Managers for law firms was a brand new concept, I suggested that Convergence initially accept the engagement as a 40-hour pilot project to make sure we could attract the caliber of executives they desired.
Result: Based on Kilpatrick Stockton’s business objectives, we helped formulate an ideal profile of the hire, identified several pools of potential candidates, and initiated conversations with several executives within each of those pools. As a result, we were able to come back to the COO with tangible results (within 20 hours) that gave both parties confidence to proceed.
Convergence subsequently hired 3 executives in the midst of promising careers in top national consulting firms (Deloitte, Accenture, and Ernst & Young) to become Business Managers for Kilpatrick Stockton. The COO later indicated on several occasions that, “introducing and filling the Business Manager roles at the firm was my biggest single contribution during my years with the firm.” In addition, we were later invited to conduct two other executive searches for the firm’s CIO and Chief HR executive.
AHP
Company: AHP is a leading private label manufacturer of consumer packaged goods, and are Wal-Mart’s largest supplier in their category.
Situation: AHP is an extremely well-run company with an aging senior management team (mid to late 50’s) that has worked closely together for many years. With a strategic eye on succession planning, they wanted to hire the “best and brightest” to immediately be their VP of Sales & Marketing, with the strong potential of becoming their CEO in 5-7 years. Having had mixed results from previous recruiters, the head of HR had heard positive things about me and referred me to his CEO to discuss filling this critical position.
Result: Because AHP preferred to avoid relocating an executive from out-of-town, we identified virtually all of the Atlanta-based sales and marketing executives with the right type of consumer packaged goods experience that were at the appropriate experience level. Convergence identified and spoke with the eventual hire within 4 weeks of starting the search. AHP continues to describe the sales and marketing executive as a “home run hire” that is a key to their current and future success.
Invisible Fence (Innotek)
Company: Innotek is a private equity portfolio company that is a leading manufacturer and supplier of “pet containment products.”
Situation: The CEO (whose background includes PepsiCo/Frito-Lay and division President of United Technologies) was hired to put Invisible Fence into hyper-growth mode. To accomplish his goals, he needed to hire a VP of Operations & Engineering who was an SMT expert (surface-mount technology) capable of stabilizing manufacturing and then successfully moving manufacturing overseas to lower costs.
Result: Though the CEO had worked with several large name-brand recruiting firms, he invited Convergence to partner with him on this hire that would be among the most critical to his success. Though we knew nothing about SMT at the time, we scoured the country to find and hire a key executive from Saturn Electronics & Engineering. Based on his experience with the exact model of SMT equipment that Invisible Fence was using and his track record with cutting costs by successfully transferring manufacturing operations to Asia, Invisible Fence agreed that the executive was virtually a perfect fit to meet their need.
Deloitte Consulting
Company: Deloitte is one of the world’s largest management consulting organizations.
Situation: Two long-time Senior Partners with Deloitte were starting a brand new practice group to help companies leverage the plethora of mandatory spending requirements created by Sarbanes-Oxley legislation. The goal was to show companies how they could turn this spending into an investment with a competitive advantage and an actual ROI, rather than companies viewing it as “regulatory tax” with no chance to positively impact the bottom line. The new practice group needed to hire Senior Managers that could help sell and manage projects to grow the practice.
Deloitte’s substantial internal recruiting department had been unsuccessful in finding and hiring qualified and interested candidates after 6-months of trying. A third party referred the Senior Partners to me to discuss their challenge.
Result: We invested the time to understand Deloitte’s unique and cutting edge business proposition before locating and initiating contact with a hard-to-find talent pool that was in extremely high demand. Within several months we were able to orchestrate a successful hire that one of the largest internal recruiting departments in the country was not able to deliver on.
Morrison Homes
Company: MH was a $1B subsidiary of a UK-based company. At the time they were one of the top 25 largest home-builders in the US. (Morrison has since merged with Taylor Woodrow to become Taylor Morrison, the 15th largest builder in the industry.)
Situation: Like many industries, the homebuilding industry was getting increasingly competitive. Costs needed to be reduced, while operations needed to become more efficient by providing more accurate and timely information to internal and external customers, as well as to the entire supply chain.
In addition, as increasingly large numbers of homebuyers began to conduct their initial home research on the Internet, it was important to have a robust and informative web presence that would support conventional sales efforts—including post-purchase services like choosing carpet and paint colors.
MH was cutting edge, in that they were one of the first in the industry to implement an ERP system, and the first to implement SAP. Morrison felt they needed a high-caliber CIO to protect their investment, as well as maintain and expand their competitive advantage. Convergence was recommended to one of the executive leaders who in turn introduced me to the CEO.
Result: We successfully recruited a successful division CIO from GE who was willing to get off “the GE fast track” in order to be part of a smaller, Atlanta-based company. Morrison turned out to be a hand-in-glove fit, and MH subsequently invited Convergence to hire their VP of Marketing and their VP of HR, both of which were replacement searches for departing executives.
TAPPI
Company: TAPPI is the largest trade association that serves companies in the pulp & paper sector.
Situation: With steadily decreasing margins in the pulp & paper industry, along with more and more production being transferred to the Pacific Rim and South America, membership and participation in the trade association was in a steady decline. Significant staff reductions were needed as the red ink on the financials increased. Faced with the decision of either closing their doors or seeking a new brand of leadership, the board chose the latter.
They sought to replace a tenured “association executive” with a dynamic, growth and results oriented executive that was accustomed to tackling big challenges. While still being willing to provide a compensation package that would be competitive from a non-profit perspective, they knew the right caliber executive would be required to take a significant pay cut. In addition, they felt it was critical to hire an executive that was passionate about “giving back” to the industry. A consultant recommended me to TAPPI’s Chairman of the Board, who in turn recommended me to the search committee.
Result: We laid out an aggressive timeline to present top-notch candidates prior to a scheduled annual meeting. We met the deadline by producing a slate of 4 qualified and interested prospects. The 7-member search committee quickly reached unanimous agreement on one of the candidates, and an offer was made and accepted. The organization is currently operating in the black, and the chairman elect of the board recently said, “It’s unbelievable what Larry has accomplished in such a short period time…and with so few resources.”
Husch
Company: Husch is one of the largest Midwest law firms in the country.
Situation: A consulting company evaluated Husch’s infrastructure and readiness from a technology perspective, and found them to be dangerously “behind the times.” This stemmed from hiring the wrong CIO several years previously, followed by allowing an amiable but under-performing Director of Technology too much time to show that he could increase his impact on the firm.
Back-to-back poor hiring/retention decisions created a situation that needed urgent repair, given the critical importance of technology in an information intensive business—data capture and retrieval, a multitude of risk management issues, government compliance, client confidentiality, etc. Because several of the firm’s critical technology functions had not been receiving proper attention, an outside consulting firm recommended hiring a high caliber CIO as quickly as possible. The Director of HR arranged for me to meet the firms Managing Partner and a dozen of its key leaders, at which time they decided to engage my services.
Result: Convergence quickly identified and initiated contact with several hundred prospects, and produced a “dilemma” for Husch in the form of two stellar candidates that they had great difficulty choosing between. (The Managing Partner commented, “I wish there was a way to hire BOTH of them!”). The candidate chosen was a sitting CIO and a nationally recognized leader with ILTA - the International Legal Technology Association. Since joining Husch, he is reported to be doing an outstanding job for the firm.