Executive Hiring for a new layer of leadership: Case Study
Our Talent Directors, Emma and Michelle were recently appointed to lead and deliver on a multiple hire, executive search project for Alternative Futures Group.
AFG are a leading Learning Disabled Charity based in the North West who are undergoing a large service provision, growth trajectory to support the increased, localised demand for services.
We were engaged to support 3 senior hires to the Alternative Futures Group.
- Director of Operations
- Director of Digital Technology
- Director of Governance and Risk
Our Talent Partners, Emma McNamara and Michelle Hillier were responsible for the successful delivery of the hires.
Case Study References provided by Head of HR (Mike Griffiths) and Executive Director of People (Kirsty Murphy) at Alternative Futures Group.
“AFG have worked in partnership with Emma and Michelle on a number of Senior Leadership Appointments over the last twelve months and have been exceptionally impressed by all aspects of the services that they provide. From our initial exploratory engagement with them, they have sought to gain a deep routed understanding of our organisation, our culture, our purpose and our priorities and our aspirations for the future.
They actively listen, are solution focused, and have been able to easily adapt their approach and campaigns to find the perfect candidates for our team.
Their level of understanding of who we are, has been clearly evident in our initial engagement with candidates put forward. All of whom have been exceptionally well briefed, and who have their own clear understanding of the role, organisation, and our priorities. This is testament to the professional skill and approach taken by them to translate their understanding of our requirements to prepare their candidates.
As our working relationship has grown, our Executive Team and Board of Trustees have an ever-increasing sense of trust and confidence in the abilities of Emma and Michelle to deliver outstanding results.
They have successfully supported AFG with several separate Director level campaigns across a range of functional disciplines (Operations / Finance / ICT / Governance). In all cases the campaigns have delivered fantastic candidates on the first time of advertising – all resulting in appointment to permanent roles. They have completely taken out the stress of undertaking these processes by reaching out to their own professional networks and contacts to create great talent pools for us to select from. We know from past experience that the roles to recruit to have been ‘hard to fill’, however they have deployed campaigns ever time that have resulted in long and short lists of candidates that suite our needs entirely.
Emma and Michelle have adopted multi-channel approaches in all cases including online and social media advertising, accessing their candidate library, head-hunting of active and passive job seekers, and more traditional methods of recruitment advertising if required. As described earlier, the approach and connections they make have never failed us, so we can’t recommend them highly enough.
With any assignment they begins by seeking to fully understand the role, the team, it’s priorities and purpose. Their team clearly has a broad range of knowledge across many functional disciplines. Prior to beginning any campaign, they have sought to meet with the relevant Executive Lead to clearly understand our requirements and to test their own assumptions of the type of role and person that we require.
Emma and Michelle have also shared their experience and knowledge of each market to professionally challenge our requirements, providing guidance on what works and what doesn’t – Their advice has always been proven to be correct so far.
For me, their ability to understand business vision and values if one of their main strengths. We have never felt pressured into appointing them to take on a contract – Their priorities are clearly to provide outstanding services to their clients, and they take the time to fully understand the organisation that they are working with.
We have had many conversations with Emma and Michelle over the last year, and it is evident in the language they use, and the candidates they present, that they fully understand our values and purpose.
For us, they have never failed to deliver on a promise or timescale they have put forward. Their level of contact, communication and engagement through a process is exemplary. They are honest in their appraisals of how long a campaign may take, and then they deliver on-time.
In a similar way, they have successfully delivered amazing talent, first time, for each of the campaigns they have supported us with.
Again, we can’t recommend them highly enough in this aspect.
Over the last year, Emma and Michelle, have shown great commitment to supporting AFG. They have always been able to accommodate our requirements and have adapted their own approach to meet our timescales. In the main, they have supported us with larger, hard to fill, senior appointments.
By way of a recent example on a smaller campaign – We recently had need for a level of external independence on an internal senior recruitment campaign. We approached Emma to provide some support with the selection and assessment of two existing SLT members for a new Director role. She was selected as we already knew she had a great level of understanding of our organisation, and the requirements for the role being appointed to, and our Executive specifically selected her as an independent, professional and responsive partner.
Emma was able to accommodate our request at short notice and supported our Chair of Board of Trustees with the independent panel member selection for this process – again providing an exemplary and successful service”
We are super proud of this case study and really enjoyed working in partnership with the Board at AFG. We wish all of the appointed Directors the best of luck in their ongoing careers at AFG.
If you are currently looking to appoint C-Suite of senior managers into your organisation please contact .. We will be happy to discuss how our process works and the costs and timings involved with 1 or multiple hiring requirements.