Candela was tasked with finding a strong number two to the Chief Digital and Information Officer. This individual would be tasked with helping to drive innovation across a historically conservative company, focusing particularly on architecture, engineering, data and analytics. The leader needed to use these areas to move the technology estate into the modern age and provide a level of authority and quality of decision making about which platforms to standardize. This candidate also needed to have strong succession potential to the CDIO.
We focused our search on leading pharmaceutical, manufacturing, CPG and automotive companies. The target companies had to be extremely global, complex in nature and likely over $10B in revenue. As this was such a key hire, the interview panel was larger than usual, and the client wanted to take their time and ensure the best chance of the correct selection.
The search took three months from briefing to completion with over 600 candidates identified.The final two candidates presented a positive dilemma for the client.They had a choice between a deeply experienced candidate from the pharmaceutical industry or a more left-field candidate from one of the most innovation CPG/Retail companies in the world. After much internal debate, they decided to hire the individual from the pharmaceutical sector.
Our partner was a global enterprise with offices with 20,000 employees and offices in over 35 countries worldwide. This assignment supported the largest global business unit that provides complex software to most of the world’s financial institutions. After years of rapid, double-digit growth, our partner asked us to help them find a leader to transform their product suite by embracing Cloud technologies. While North America represents our partner’s largest market, this leadership position needed to be based in the UK.
The search commenced after the Brexit vote which added a layer of complexity in enticing candidates from Continental Europe. Furthermore, the compensation package offered was not competitive enough to entice candidates from the US.
Given the constraints of the search, we had to focus primarily on the UK market for candidates. With a relatively small number of qualified candidates with global, enterprise scale, software engineering experience available in the UK, we had to ensure that every candidate conversation and interaction counted. The assignment was partner led at every stage, helping to ensure no prospective candidates were lost through the delegation of tasks to a junior team member.
Our final shortlist of five candidates was delivered in six weeks.The hiring manager, EVP CTO, described being “impressed with the breadth and depth of talent introduced” and, subsequently, made two hires from the shortlist and recommended a third candidate to one of his peers, who subsequently also received an offer.
The initial brief was filled with the placement of a world class software engineering leader who has since been invited to take part in the CEO’s leadership development program. He has also been appointed Deputy CTO.
Our partner in this case promoted their incumbent VP Enterprise Applications to CIO. We were then tasked with identifying, engaging and securing their replacement. The company needed a leader who could not only cover all the functional areas of responsibility across mainstream applications but also someone who could be a future successor to the newly appointed CIO.
This leader needed to possess extensive ERP experience (specifically SAP S/4 HANA) along with experience managing mainstream commercial applications, such as Salesforce, Veeva and Office 365. Industry knowledge was required and ideally knowledge of clinical systems.
This search needed to focus on companies of a comparable scale and complexity, that were global in nature, had manufacturing at their core and that are heavily regulated for quality and manufacturing best practice.
The search was much less about speed than quality as this position would be managing the largest team within IT as well as the broadest set of responsibilities and mission critical applications.
In the end, we achieved both speed and quality delivering the search from start to finish in two months. We mapped the pharmaceutical, life science and manufacturing industries across the US speaking to more than 400 candidates in the process. The resulted in a shortlist of six candidates with 50% gender diversity. The successful candidate was a diverse male from a competing pharmaceutical company.
