THE CLIENT

Collingwood had already worked with this privately owned aerospace engineering OEM client to recruit an Operations Director in 2012 and again in 2017 to find his replacement when he was promoted to the Senior Executive Team.
 
Collingwood is proud to be the retained search partner for one of the world leaders in aviation and aerospace component manufacturing. Our client, established nearly 30 years ago, operates in aerospace and defence, energy, and bio-medical sectors.

This large footprint has led to their revenue currently standing at around $4.2 billion. An international company with 57 locations in 17 countries across the United States, Europe, and Asia. Since the beginning, they have been a company willing to invest in the future, whatever form it takes. Looking ahead, they’re still investing in the capabilities and the science that will enable customers to tackle the next generation of life-changing challenges, whatever they may be.

THE ROLE

This new role has been created to take ownership of the finance operations in Europe, overseeing and managing the existing team and having responsibility for over 10 countries in the region.

Having consulted on the brief and scope of this role with our client, we prompted that we find a leader that can standardise the accounting procedures, reporting, forecasting and analysis for the team and to act as the catalyst to drive change and enhance the company’s best practices.

THE BUSINESS CHALLENGE

This role materialised as the Global Director of Finance and Operations was spending more time working closely with the Head of Europe and directly looking into the processes on our side of the Atlantic. It became clear to her quite quickly that the European Financial Operations needed more attention than initially thought from the reporting. There was a clear challenge with the international business units, the standardisation was not there and the leaders on the Sales side had been making the most of the lack of rigour.

We had to hire an inspirational leader that has the gravitas to voice the message from the senior leadership team to the region and hold everyone accountable. We needed to engage someone that has proven experience of operating at the strategic level but is also capable of rolling their sleeves up from time-to-time to really get into the weeds as well due to work needing to be done on the processes.

Another component we needed to consider was the fact that across the different regions there are multiple financial regulations that need to be adhered to and all of these frameworks are slightly different across Europe. This meant that we had to search for a leader that had the experience of multiple locations as well as the other necessary criteria for a Financial Director position.

THE SOLUTION

It was evident, due to this tight brief, that this was going to be a research heavy assignment.  The need to engage with the passive marketplace was paramount as it would be unlikely that an individual with the hybrid of skills we needed would be actively looking and would approach us.

Having worked within the aerospace industry for nearly 20 years, Collingwood were able to draw out businesses that could potentially fulfil all the above criteria.  This ultimately, and rather surprisingly, led to 48 individuals being highlighted as target candidates.  This was further distilled to 31 who could fit the brief strongly.  All 48 were engaged with, with Collingwood working with the client through the approach phase to further shape the specification and expectations placed on the position. 

Given that this was a new role, Collingwood agreed to share a broad range of CV’s that all had the necessary experience but strengths in different areas and differing career paths. This approach enabled our contact to make an informed decision on what “good” looked like and salary expectations from the market.  This was key in successfully securing the right person, as this was an untapped region for our client and we had to let the market dictate what the range should look like.

 Having agreed on whom to take forward, Collingwood met with five candidates to assess in full, these all met the criteria to perform the role and fitted with the culture of our client.

Having coordinated the interviews, Collingwood received positive feedback on four of these five and second interviews with the board were arranged.  Two shone, with Collingwood feeding back to the client on expectations of the two and advantages / disadvantages to employing both.  This led to the client offering the agreed preferred candidate with Collingwood managing negotiations and notice arrangements.