Financial Challenges:
High growth businesses require heavy upfront investment, costs can grow whilst growth lags, outgoings often exceed incomings and cashflow issues can arise. PE investment comes with heavy reporting requirements and often debt which needs to be serviced correctly and prudently by a capable CFO.
Talent Challenges:
To scale successfully high growth businesses need to increasingly invest in sourcing, attracting and retaining highly sort after, specialist talent. Professionalising the workforce needs to become a continual and ongoing process in order for a business to successfully and sustainably grow and improve output over time.
Scalability Challenges:
As growing businesses increase their clientbase and headcount, systems, technologies, processes and teams need upgrading to sustain quality, delivery and brand reputation. Investor backed businesses need to manage an intense pressure to grow from investors who typically operate on a 5-7 year exit schedule.
Leadership Challenges:
Growth companies with founders not transitioning from doers to strategic leaders need to build a strong leadership team around the founder or hire a CEO. Leadership must maintain the core values and vision whilst adding new talent and perspectives. Leadersh ip must work with investors to align expectations.
Market Challenges:
Growing companies need to develop deep and broad market knowledge to best deal with market pressures such as negative macroeconomic and fiscal trends, a downturn in market conditions, increasing competition, decreasing availability and increasing cost of resources.
Strategic & Data Driven Leaders:
Growing companies need highly capable leaders that dedicate adequate time to creating and refining a winning strategy. Ambitious companies need leaders who have the nous to develop winning commercial plans. Aspirational companies need leaders who make evidence based decisions and in its absence have good intuition.
Ambitious & Results Driven Leaders:
Ambitious businesses need highly capable leaders that are ambitious as to what is possible for the business within the timeframe of the investment. Ambitious companies need leaders who work at pace to make things happen. Aspiring companies need leaders who are laser focused on targets, performance and results.
Committed & Adaptive Leaders:
Growing companies need highly capable leaders that are confident, fully commit to decisions and give their decisions time to succeed. Ambitious companies need leaders who can quickly adapt and change strategy and execution when things are not working. Aspirational companies need leaders who are highly creative with often very limited resources.
Execution & Team Focused Leaders:
Ambitious businesses need highly capable leaders who have the ability to successfully execute against strategic plans. Ambitious companies need leaders who lead from the front. Aspirational companies need leaders who have the ability to intelligently build and utilise high performing teams in pursuit of strategic goals.
Investor Smart & Investor Aligned Leaders:
Investor backed businesses need financially and interpersonally skilled leaders. Investor backed businesses need leaders who can understand and meet investor expectations. Investor backed businesses need leaders who provide investors with the insight they need and achieve good business outcomes.
Client Engagement:
We get to know the client and deeply understand their business, their strategic plans, their key opportunities and challenges, how the role being hired ties in and the type of candidate that is needed to deliver the change required. We then provide appropriate challenge to the client where necessary. We then ensure all stakeholders are aligned on the role and candidate requirements before starting the search.
Market Research:
We typically conduct 100+ hours of market research. We conduct extensive research into the clients’ market, relevant companies and prospective candidates within these companies. We conduct research into business deals in our clients market and prospective candidates involved with these companies. We take candidate recommendations from our extensive network of business leaders and investors. We review our extensive candidate network built over a decade.
Candidate Engagement:
We spend considerable time strategising on how to present the opportunity to prospective candidates in a way that generates maximum interest from the candidate marketplace. We then thoughtfully approach and engage these prospective candidates in the marketplace. We then qualify individuals interested in the opportunity, conducting thorough assessments as to whether they have the experience, skills and traits to be successful in the role.
Shortlist & Interviews:
We create a shortlist of the best candidates and introduce our client to these individuals. We then closely manage a thorough and timely interview and feedback process. Once our client has identified their preferred candidate we manage a thorough and timely offer and acceptance process. We then keep in touch with candidate and client periodically ensuring all parties are happy.
Professionalisation:
Chairmen, CEOs, CFOs and COOs who can come into the business post investment and, knowing what good looks like, quickly improve people, processes and systems and put infrastructure in place for growth.
Expansion:
CCOs, CROs, CMOs and Sales Directors who can develop winning commercial strategies, sales, marketing and customer functions and innovative product suites, expand internationally and grow through strategic M&A.
Turnaround:
Turnaround CFOs, CEOs and Executive Chairmen, often on an interim basis, to take control of cashflow, restructure and reduce costs, improve the business proposition and finance and execute the turnaround plan.
Succession:
Professional CEOs to replace founders struggling to transition from doers to strategic leaders. New leaders fully committed to the business for the next investment cycle. Proven leaders to take the business to the next level.
Exit Preparation:
Chairmen, CEOs and CFOs who can quickly assess a company’s readiness to enter a sale process, take steps to position the business favourably to potential acquirers, manage due diligence and negotiate the sale.
Permanent Searches:
We charge 25% of the preferred candidate’s basic salary made up of two fees. At the outset of the search we charge the retainer fee of £10,000. When we have helped our client secure their preferred candidate we charge the success fee calculated as the total charge less the retainer fee paid.
Interim Searches:
We charge 25% of the preferred candidate’s rate. Once we have helped our client secure their preferred interim candidate and the candidate begins the role, we bill the client every two weeks.
Proactive Introductions:
Knowing our clients well, some of our clients like us to proactively introduce them to prospective candidates that can enhance their business or businesses. Depending on the engagement, our permanent or interim search charges apply here.
