Tag: executive search

Pearson Partners Quickly Delivers First CIO for Newly Acquired Distribution Company

When the global private equity firm Advent International completed its majority investment in Morrison Supply Company in November 2011, it planned to quickly double or even quadruple the size of the half-billion-dollar distribution company, which was already the fourth-largest distributor of plumbing and HVAC supplies in the United States. To achieve that goal, one of the first orders of business was to create a new chief information officer/vice president position that would establish a solid foundation for the company’s distribution technology, ideally positioning the business to move forward at a rapid pace.

Drawing upon the recommendations of Advent’s operating partners, Morrison Supply interviewed several executive search firms. They ultimately chose Pearson Partners to help fill this essential role with the right individual, who would oversee about a dozen IT staff members.

[blockquote style=”” align=”left”]”Pearson Partners kept to the schedule, which was aggressive,” Hornsby notes. “Communications were very direct, and Pearson Partners worked closely with our operating partners throughout the process, which didn’t require me to get involved until we were down to four final candidates. The four I interviewed were of solid caliber. The entire process was tremendous; it was honestly as smooth as any hiring process I’ve ever experienced.”[/blockquote]

“We were looking for the right combination of significant technology and distribution experience, as well as the ability to fit into the Morrison culture,” says Chip Hornsby, Morrison Supply’s new chief executive officer and an Advent operating partner. “We wanted someone who had the knowledge to determine what we needed to grow the business, but who also had the work ethic to get in here, roll up the sleeves and get the basics right so we would be positioned to build toward the future.”

The process began with the Pearson Partners team gaining a deep understanding of the responsibilities and skill set required for the new CIO position, as well as the existing organizational structure and the long-term vision for Morrison Supply’s distribution services. With these requisites in mind, Pearson Partners began its nationwide search process, promptly delivering more than a dozen highly qualified candidates for the initial round of interviews. The top four made it through the company’s initial vetting and into Hornsby’s office for final interviews, and one ideal candidate—Joe Lacik, the former CIO/senior vice president information services of Aviall Services, a Boeing company—was offered the job.

From start to finish, the entire search took fewer than 90 days, and Hornsby could not be more pleased with the process and Lacik’s job performance to date. Within three months of his start date, Lacik had completed his analysis of Morrison’s existing IT systems, evaluated other technology options and presented to the company’s board of directors his strategic recommendations for building a strong technology backbone for Morrison Supply.

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Pearson Partners Finds the Right Leader for a Private-Equity Portfolio Company

In 2011, Chicago-based private equity firm Pfingsten Partners LLC invested in On Computer Services, a national power service and products company based in Terrell, Texas, and merged it with another company to create a new entity called Unified Power. Pfingsten Partners knew the business had enormous potential to grow into the premier independent company of its kind in North America, but needed the right leadership to take it there. According to Larry Taylor, vice president at Pfingsten Partners, finding a president and chief operating officer with the right combination of experience, vision, drive and personality was a tough job.

“We needed a president and chief operating officer with the leadership skills, thick skin and patience to convert this company from an entrepreneurial business to a process-driven, organization-led business,” he says. “This person has to be strategic while knowing when to be “in the trenches” as the business is being converted, integrated and prepared to grow over the coming years.”

Pfingsten Partners chose Pearson Partners International to take on the search, based on the recommendation of another Dallas-area search firm specializing in the placement of financial professionals.

Among many candidates considered, Pearson Partners identified Chris Roach, working as a business unit leader for a global electronics and industrial manufacturing company. Although Roach was happy with his current position and wasn’t seeking external opportunities, Pearson Partners convinced him that the position at Unified Power was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Having worked with both privately owned and publicly traded companies in the past, he was excited by the possibility of taking the lead role in transitioning the company from an entrepreneurial startup to a growing, organization-led business with a high market value.

“This was an opportunity to be involved in something special, at the right place and the right time,” says Roach. “I’m an entrepreneur at heart, and this position is like owning my own business, but with the support of a really strong private equity company.”

Commenting on his experience in working with Pearson—a process involving multiple interviews with both Pearson Partners and Pfingsten Partners—he says, “I have used executive recruiters for my companies, and I have been recruited by executive recruiters in the past, and I would call this experience better than average in both of those scenarios.”

After interviewing a number of candidates, Taylor is confident that Pfingsten Partners has placed the right person at the helm of Unified Power, saying “Chris has good vision and experience, and was able to see the opportunity for the business as we see it. It is a big job. We had to get a candidate in there who could ride the initial storm of the transition period, then as the leader of the business, take it from there.”

“We knew Chris had the experience, saw the opportunity and could get his hands dirty—and that is a combination of ingredients not easily found in a person at his level.”

Read other examples of how Pearson Partners helps clients build world-class leadership teams.

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Executives in Transition: Nothing But the Best for Greyhound’s Best and Brightest

When Greyhound decided to move many of its shared service functions to its parent company, even top-level employees were not immune to the layoffs. Knowing that these valued executives would face a tough job market, Rhonda MacAndrew, Greyhound’s senior vice president, human resources, wanted to be sure they had every opportunity to successfully transition into new jobs.

“I think our employees are one of our strongest assets,” MacAndrew says. “When someone leaves the organization, particularly at a senior level, they still can represent the company in one way or another, and that has a lot to do with how Greyhound is viewed in the community-in a positive way or in a negative way. I would much rather that someone feel that we’ve gone out of our way and done things to support them in their transition, so that the feeling they have about the company is a positive one.”

Helping departing executives not only boosts Greyhound’s reputation as a company that treats its people with respect, it shows the employees who remain that the company’s leaders care. Because Greyhound wanted to give its departing executives the best career transition services available, the company chose Pearson Partners International. Some of the executives who were let go took advantage of the transition services immediately, while others waited several months to take the first step. But all had one thing in common: they were pleasantly surprised at the breadth of services provided by Pearson Partners and the value they brought to their job search.

Career Coaching

“It is important to have services provided that are holistic,” MacAndrew says. “There are lots of dynamics aside from just helping somebody put their resume together or helping them in regards to how they do their elevator speech. There are lots of people who take losing their job very personally. They need some coaching, possibly in regard to their overall self esteem. There may be challenges or issues with their families. These things are important, and I want somebody working with those people to help them address those issues.”

Some executives have spent years or even decades making million-dollar decisions, but have very little experience looking for a job. For example, Mark Southerst left his position as general counsel and secretary after serving 20 years with Greyhound, so it had literally been decades since he’d had to update a resume, dust off his interviewing skills, or assess his strengths and weaknesses.

[blockquote style=”” align=”right”]”The most valuable part of these services has been inventorying my skills, understanding my personality traits, understanding my strengths and weaknesses, and being able to highlight my experience and put emphasis on certain parts of my experience,” says Southerst, who is now chief legal officer and secretary for United Vision Logistics in Lafayette, La.[/blockquote]

In addition to developing a high-quality resume and practicing interviewing skills, Pearson Partners’ career transition services include personal assessment and coaching; research on target companies; networking and connection-making; and evaluation of specific opportunities, from cultural fit to compensation. Before any interview, Pearson Partners’ executive coaches work closely with the candidate to deeply understand the interviewing company’s mission, vision, culture, and management team.

“What it enabled me to do was to think of the type of opportunities and the key characteristics that would work for me, what industries, what type of reporting relationship or corporate structure that I thought I would thrive in,” Southerst says. “As you do your interviews, you begin to focus not only on making sure you present yourself well, but also looking to see whether you will be the right fit and being realistic about it.”

For Krista Robinson, Greyhound’s former vice president, supply chain, who is now vice president of procurement at DynCorp International, Pearson Partners’ transition services went far beyond the outplacement services she’d sourced for others during her career.

“I thought I knew a lot about what would happen—you would go to class; sit around with other depressed, shocked people; get some resume feedback,” she says. “But it was nothing like that. Pearson is really executive coaching and networking, which is different than outplacement services. This is to help you get through a rough period in your life, to pick your next opportunity, and for it to be a better fit so you can stay a long time.”

After being unexpectedly laid off less than a year after coming on board at Greyhound, Robinson found the assessment particularly valuable. “After you have had something like this happen to you, even if you were removed from your job and it wasn’t because of your performance, it still feels personal. So it’s good to have professionals evaluate you and to hear the good things about you. You are not alone; you have people in your corner who root for you and give you some tools to research and filter opportunities.”

Jeff Altizer, C.P.A., Greyhound’s former chief financial officer who is currently working as a freelance consultant, found the custom research and networking opportunities highly valuable. “The fact that Pearson is a retained search firm has given me more access than I gave it credit for at first to leverage their aspects and networks,” he says. “It is more hands-on than just ‘here’s our toolkit.’ For me, I need a sounding board and someone to give me industry perspective, facts, and the data I need to make confident decisions, and Pearson Partners provides that.”

Network Building

Southerst, Greyhound’s former general counsel and secretary, carefully researched the various outplacement services firms after assisting with the transition and then leaving the company. He chose Pearson Partners in part because he wanted one-on-one assistance, and also because of the company’s connections and assistance with building not just a network, but the networking skills to grow and sustain it.

MacAndrew is also impressed that Pearson Partners goes beyond most other career transition companies by offering personal networking services. That’s especially important, she believes, for senior-level executives, who may require additional time and extensive networking to identify companies and opportunities that are a good fit both culturally and professionally.

[blockquote style=”” align=”left”]”Pearson Partners has a very strong connection in the marketplace, providing personal networking with individuals that brings leads to people who are transitioning, and I think that’s extremely positive,” she says. “Part of that is because Pearson Partners does executive search as well.”[/blockquote]

For example, executive job-seekers can ask Pearson Partners to research companies they’re interested in, and will get detailed company information and in many cases, names and contact information for people Pearson has placed or worked with in the past. In some cases, Pearson’s executives are able to make phone calls and open doors on behalf of transitioning executives.

The former Greyhound executives were also invited to attend Pearson Partners’ quarterly breakfast events, where they could meet and network with business leaders from across the area.

Ultimately, for these executives who moved on from Greyhound into new roles, Pearson Partners served as a sounding board, coach, network, research organization, and more.

“An executive is accustomed to having a team supporting them to facilitate decision-making,” Altizer explains. “Pearson Partners are, in essence, my management team for the job search.”

Read other examples of how Pearson Partners helps clients build world-class leadership teams.

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The Right Candidate at the Right Time to Lead BMC Dallas/Fort Worth

In the Western U.S., the building supply and materials market was booming in late 2012—especially in Texas, where the economy had taken less of a hit than the rest of the nation. The Boise-based building supply and service company BMC was making a strong comeback after rebuilding from a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in 2010 and transitioning from public to private ownership. But in Dallas/Fort Worth, sales were flat, despite the growing market. Teams had been operating in silos, at a time when it was important for business units to come together and optimize returns.

The company decided to look for a new Dallas/Fort Worth market leader with extensive experience in building supply and materials, but also with the leadership and team-building skills to reorganize the 350-person DFW team, realign the sales function and pull everyone together behind a common strategy.

Impressed by Pearson Partners International’s knowledge of the building materials and supply industry, especially in the Dallas market, BMC retained the firm in late August 2012 to begin the search for a new market manager. Within days, Pearson Partners delivered the first six candidates. BMC quickly narrowed the field to the top three, and after using Pearson Partners’ assessment services to ensure a good fit between the candidates and the organization, BMC extended an offer in late September to Mike Mendlik, who was working in the same role for a nearby competitor. He started work at BMC October 1, 2012.

“It’s working out terrific,” Mendlik said. “I have been blessed with a great team and am lucky to have people with a lot of experience and a great culture surrounding me. In my six months here, we have separated the HR and safety departments and recruited a safety manager. We’re giving people more responsibility. The people are here, the culture is here, we just need to give people what they need to achieve success in the field. We’re setting up the market to achieve a significant increase in sales going forward.”

Although he had not been looking for a career change, Mendlik was drawn by BMC’s hands-on approach to management at the market level, and the fact that he would have a single manager to work with when he needed answers. Having been recruited to a new job once before, he was impressed with Pearson Partners’ professionalism and open communication.

“Mike is awesome, and we are so happy with him,” said Stephanie Erickson, BMC’s vice president of human resources. “We were lucky to be able to attract him from one of our No. 1 competitors, and he saw the growth opportunities here at BMC. He knows the market well and he was the most seasoned candidate we met. He treats everyone with respect. He has jumped in and partnered with senior management, and manages very well up and down the organization. He is a change agent, and that’s what we needed.”

Throughout the search process, Erickson was impressed with Pearson Partners’ professionalism and responsiveness, as well as the firm’s familiarity with the players in the industry, all of which contributed to the completion of a successful search in just one month.

“We have retained Pearson Partners to fill another market manager position in the Pacific Northwest because they did such a good job in Dallas,” Erickson said. “We enjoyed our experience with them and will stick with them. They made our job a lot easier.”

Read other examples of how Pearson Partners helps clients build world-class leadership teams.

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Fast-Turnaround Search Fills Two Highly Strategic Roles at Reddy Ice

Producing about 18,000 tons of ice daily for consumers and businesses, Reddy Ice is implementing company-wide transformation designed to firmly secure its position as the largest manufacturer and distributor of packaged ice products in the United States.

As part of this organizational makeover, Angie Wallander, chief administrative officer for Reddy Ice, had two newly created jobs to fill: vice president, information technology, and vice president, human resources. With an aggressive timeline to fill these senior-level roles, Wallander began researching executive search firms and was immediately impressed by Pearson Partners International.

[blockquote style=”” align=””]“I really liked Pearson’s approach because they wanted to understand so many different pieces of our business, from supply chain management to accounting,” Wallander says. “That helped them understand the culture of our company, who these new people would interact with, our management team, succession planning, and how we work as a business. They didn’t look at it as just filling a position; they were looking to fill a long-term spot with someone who will eventually go to the next level.”[/blockquote]

Both new positions involve highly strategic roles, aligning IT and HR with Reddy Ice’s business agenda and goals. For the IT position, Reddy Ice needed someone with both strong technical and strategic skills – a rare combination in a senior-level IT function. For the HR job, which would oversee payroll, compensation, benefits, recruiting, training and all other HR responsibilities, the company was seeking corporate experience with a manufacturing background. But it also needed this HR leader to jump in quickly and create new programs that would completely transform Reddy Ice’s HR agenda.

Pearson Partners pre-screened all candidates to ensure they met these qualifications, presenting them to Wallander along with detailed analysis of their experience, background, education, compensation levels and more.

“Pearson Partners did a really great job with the assessments of candidates and their management style, capabilities and leadership fit,” Wallander says. “If a person was too senior or junior, they came forward with a plan to bring that person up to speed or to clarify the risks we’d be taking on. The more I worked with Pearson Partners, the more they got to know my personal taste as well as our business needs. Every candidate they brought forward was a qualified potential candidate.”

Wallander interviewed 12 candidates for each job, and as she’d hoped, both positions were filled within eight to 10 weeks. Wallander couldn’t be happier with the new hires and the process of working with Pearson Partners to fill these mission-critical roles.

[blockquote style=”” align=””]”Pearson Partners did an excellent job, and I would use them again,” Wallander says. “They were a pleasure to work with and a great partner to me, and made it easy to focus on my business responsibilities while ensuring I met the need to get new people in quickly.”[/blockquote]

Pearson Partners finds “perfect” candidate for “impossible” executive search

As a $7.3 billion family of private equity funds that invests in energy companies, Natural Gas Partners does everything possible to ensure the success of the companies it sponsors. Because assisting those companies with risk management and environmental policies makes good business sense, in 2010 Natural Gas Partners created a new position to take on the task: Director of Portfolio and Environmental Risk Management.

The ideal person for the job would have both in-the-field operational experience and senior-level managerial experience, with a strong focus on risk management, compliance planning, policy development and implementation, crisis management, and strategic thinking.

“This person really has to be an expert in both safety and environmental issues,” says Christopher Ray, a managing director with NGP. “In most companies those are two distinct functions, or the person in charge of both has been out of the field for so long that they don’t have relevant operational experience. Finding someone skilled in both disciplines is like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

[blockquote style=”” align=”left”]The task was so daunting, in fact, that many of the search firms Ray interviewed flatly told him that it was impossible. Pearson Partners proved that not only was it possible to find an ideally qualified candidate, the entire search and hiring process would be completed in under three months.[/blockquote]

Ray chose Pearson Partners for the search because he felt the firm was the most competent of all that he had interviewed. “I had attended Pearson Partners’ breakfast events, so I had a comfort level with the firm, and I knew they wouldn’t say they could deliver if they really didn’t believe they could do it.”

Pearson Partners’ familiarity with the private equity space was also an important consideration for Ray.

“Pearson Partners understands the private equity business very well, and the cultural attributes that go hand-in-hand with that,” he says. “They were in tune with our need for this person to both fit internally and interact positively with our portfolio companies. If someone didn’t traffic in the private equity space, they wouldn’t be in tune with that.”

Ray was impressed that Pearson Partners worked with him to deeply understand this unique position and the skills and characteristics it demands. With this in mind, Pearson Partners carefully searched for viable candidates, narrowing the field to just four to five highly qualified candidates for interviews.

“They were very efficient with my time, and didn’t just send dozens of resumes for me to sort through,” he said. “That made it easier for me, because they did the hard work involved in screening and filtering. Some of the other search firms or headhunters I’ve used tend to put that work on the client.”

Because Ray felt that all the candidates he interviewed were excellent, he was faced with the tough task of picking the best person for the job. Luckily, he says, one was “perfect.” Three months after Ray retained Pearson Partners, that candidate accepted Natural Gas Partners’ job offer.

“His experience covered both the deeply technical capability level and the 10,000-foot managerial perspective we need,” Ray says. “He has the relevant experience, maturity, judgment, personality, and business style, and he has jumped right in with both feet and made a contribution in a number of different ways. It’s a great fit.”

“One of our favorite things to hear from a client is ‘we’ve tried to find this person and it’s impossible,’” says Keith Pearson, president and vice chairman of Pearson Partners. “Let’s face it: if it were easy, they wouldn’t need us. We excel at finding these needle-in-haystack leaders and attracting them to our client. What enabled us to succeed on the NGP search was the deep level of intimacy and partnership in our relationship with our client and a very clear understanding of the skills and attributes required for the position. In that respect, Chris’s leadership, combined with NGP’s exceptional reputation in the marketplace, helped us to complete this search quickly and effectively.”

Read other examples of how Pearson Partners helps clients build world-class leadership teams.

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A Unique Company With a Unique Hiring Challenge

After getting by with a procurement management role that had been consolidated with another function, LSG Sky Chefs had grown to need a full-time vice president of procurement. Owned by the German company Lufthansa, LSG Sky Chefs is an internationally recognized in-flight services provider and airline catering company.

“Filling this job was tricky, as we are in a space that isn’t really food manufacturing but also is not a restaurant, although we wanted a candidate with 10 to 15 years of food industry procurement experience,” says Chris Burt, LSG Sky Chefs’ senior vice president of human resources. “We are tied to the airline industry, which is very volatile and complex, so our challenge was to find someone who was comfortable taking the lead in that environment and not accepting the status quo—but also someone with a soft touch. We were asking the impossible.”

How could this unique company find an individual with the right combination of skills, experience and personality for this one-of-a-kind job? LSG Sky Chefs turned to Pearson Partners International, which had helped the company fill executive jobs in the past and had a good understanding of its unique business model.

The process began with a thorough assessment of the company’s needs and the team’s culture, involved the pre-screening of more than 175 candidates—including one internal candidate—and culminated in LSG Sky Chefs interviewing four highly qualified individuals.

[blockquote style=”” align=”left”]”Pearson Partners was very effective at giving us the best of the best,” Burt says. “They gave us good insight into the candidates they presented to us, and we had conversations about them so that we didn’t have to interview 20 people. We knew we were interviewing the right people.”[/blockquote]

Burt was impressed with Pearson Partners’ responsiveness, particularly in adapting the search to changing priorities.

“Throughout this search, we had a couple of zigs and zags, and had to refocus a couple of times,” Burt explains. “After we interviewed a couple of candidates, we realized we needed to make adjustments to our targeted salary range to find a more senior person. We were looking for more broad leadership and excellent interpersonal skills—a real change agent. Pearson Partners kept on diligently sourcing candidates that met our revised needs until we found the one that was right.”

Pearson Partners also went the extra mile by providing detailed documentation of the search process at the request of LSG Sky Chefs’ board of directors.

LSG Sky Chefs offered the job to the first of the four candidates interviewed. In addition to having the senior-level food service procurement experience necessary to excel in this challenging role, the professional who took the job is the perfect fit for the team and the company’s unique business challenges, particularly those involving systems and processes for controlling food costs.

“Our new VP of procurement is very collaborative and can operate at all levels,” Burt says. “She not only raises the bar for the team and delivers results, she brings the team together, leverages the old guard, and teaches and mentors people. We couldn’t be happier. We definitely look forward to using Pearson Partners again for our key executive searches.”

Read other examples of how Pearson Partners helps clients build world-class leadership teams.

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