The Company

The Founder of this £100m+ structural building product manufacturer contacted Collingwood off the back of a failed attempt to secure a suitable candidate through a different Executive Search firm.

Headquartered and operating through several locations in the UK, the company was poised for continued growth. The board aimed to double turnover inside the next 15 years.

As part of their plans and commitment to remaining a top UK supplier, the board sought someone who could expand and lead their offering in the northern half of England, a untapped region.

The Role

Initially, the purpose of this newly created role would be to build pipeline throughout the northern half of the country. The target markets primarily focus on Main Contractors and Civil Engineers.

Although the preferred candidate would be supported, the position was designed to provide a large degree of independence, empowering the individual to make decisions, drive initiatives and build their own team. Although the business required someone from a strong business development background, they required someone with leadership qualities. This person would take control for the profit and loss throughout the region.

The Business Challenge

Given the technical knowledge required to convince Main contractors to buy off a structural building product manufacture such as this, it was important to the Founder that this person had industry and product specification experience.

This restricted the talent pool to under 35 regional candidates.  Upon feeding this back, Collingwood’s Head of Building Products & Construction, Mark Goldsmith, advised the Founder that it would be best to open the search up.  Based on previous experience, the two agreed to include precast concrete. In total, this opened the search up to 49 regional sales leaders and General Managers.

Also, Mark highlighted that it was important to build the client’s value proposition. With the market somewhat depressed, and established suppliers already operating regionally, taking the onus away from, “how much is your client paying”, was paramount.

Spending time with the Founder, Mark was able to unearth a comprehensive and strong ‘story’ to present to target candidates during headhunting calls.

Added to this, the Founder requested that this was conducted as a confidential search. This further limited the information that Collingwood could provide upon initially engaging with the market, with Mark agreeing how was best to introduce the client’s name to interested parties.

The Result

Given a previous headhunter had failed to secure anyone, together with the perceived restrictions to this search, Collingwood is pleased to report that the Founder chose to recruit two of the three candidates interviewed at final stage.

One was brought in as the bona fide Regional Director, with another candidate offered who demonstrated the hunger and talent to grow into a larger role in the years to come.

In fact, both candidates come from the structural building material background first requested by the Founder.

Fortunately, the Founder was open to listening to Collingwood’s suggestions on how to approach the markets, along with the best way of assessing candidates whilst ensuring they were hooked into the position. 

Reflecting on the assignment, one thing was very clear to Mark and the team: although the client had previously engaged with another retained Search firm, they had clearly restricted their search to people who they already knew, having not exhausted the research and approach phase.

In summary, the following process took place:

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