Case Study - Central & Eastern Europe

Supply Chain/Operations Director, Pharmaceuticals, Romania

A highly successful local company with international management and funding looking for an international Romanian or ex-patriate to fill a key strategic newly created role to ramp up supply chain and operations initially within the wholesale business but with prospects to take a Board level position focussed on international expansion and new business development. Sounds like an easy sell to high calibre candidates but despite several failed searches and the client’s own attempts to advertise and use multiple recruiters on a success fee basis there was already a lot of misinformation in the local market. Within one month a shortlist was delivered consisting of both Romanian nationals with international experience as well as several high profile ex-pats with previous Romanian and CEE experience. The client was so happy with the results that two candidates were hired, one ex-pat to lead strategy and take the Director level role, and a more operational Romanian candidate coming from the automotive sector though with previous consumer/healthcare industry experience – the complimentary experience of the two candidates making the ideal solution to a strong domestic business looking to expand rapidly.

Multinational Retailer, Regional HQ CEE, Prague  

A large business (c.1.6bEUR local sales in the CEE region, 15,000 headcount, 300+ stores) operating through an intense period of recent consolidation, coping with an outflow of talent and a reluctance of some senior level talent to come to the table in certain functions. Having already hired a Board level commercial role we were mandated to hire several other roles including operations, HR, Real Estate etc. Initially the feeling from the client side was that there was little value in trying to recruit directly from competitors. Nevertheless, with a highly confidential and sensitive approach we closed the deal to recruit a Director from the closest competitor to our client – reinforcing the belief that if you don’t ask you don’t get – this was quite a coup for the company and led to several more strategic hires.