The Client

The Pandrol brand name is a recognised and trusted one in the global Rail market and today there are some 1,420,000,000 Pandrol rail fastenings in service. 

The Business Challenge

The planned retirement of the current incumbent, had created the need to find a strong, commercially focused individual to help the company continue its sustained pattern of growth. 

The Role

Ultimately this role has overall responsibility for a multi-million pound organisation and therefore the requirement to find candidates of the highest calibre was vital. Candidates would need to be Rail industry experts with an extremely good level of experience in Production and Manufacturing. 

Our Solution

The Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer of the organisation gave Collingwood a fantastic overview of every part of the business, especially around the culture at Pandrol UK and the organisations plans for the future. This provided a much clearer picture of the role to be established, focusing on responsibilities, main challenges and key competencies.

Using our knowledge of the Rail industry and in-depth market research Collingwood generated a target list of organisations and approached 120 candidates for the position. Using a thorough qualification process Collingwood was able to generate a long-list of 8 candidates to conduct our interview process. Collingwood’s consultants provided a full update with management information at the end of every week to Pandrol’s COO.

Acting as partner and brand ambassador to Pandrol, Collingwood conducted full competency based 1st stage interviews to all 8 candidates on the long-list, delving into key drivers for individuals and personal attributes. As a result of Collingwood’s interviews, 5 candidates were selected to be discussed further with Pandrol’s COO and Group Managing Director. 

The Result

Following great feedback from the COO and Group MD, 2 candidates were selected for interview. From here, one candidate was selected to go forward to spend time with the current MD and meet the Group Chief Executive Officer.

After impressing at interview stage the candidate was offered the position.  As with all our assignments Collingwood managed the contract negotiations through to completion. The feedback received by Collingwood has been very positive and both parties are looking at opportunities to work together again in the future.