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Executive Search Case Studies

The Good Search makes it a practice to conduct executive search case studies. We track metrics and measure the results of our executive search engagements. We use that information to up our game.  

To ensure a concierge-like experience for our clients, we also invite their candid feedback after search assignments. Client feedback helps us innovate to align with evolving needs.

In fact, the reason The Good Search exists is that we stopped and listened to the needs of executive search buyers. We concluded that you deserved something better — a more transparent, informed, collaborative retained search firm model you can trust. We keep on listening to create the ultimate client experience.

The Challenge

Executive search case study.

A global advertising agency headquartered in New York City needs to hire a top-performing president to lead its Detroit, Michigan office. The senior executive needs to be capable of heading a cross-agency digital team of more than 200 professionals. The ideal executive candidate must also be capable of providing a distressed U.S. automaker with the necessary vision to turn its struggling business around. But what earns this particular engagement a starring role in our executive search case studies is its level of difficulty.

Our ad agency client suspects this particular search might prove impossible to fill due to the location. Advertising executives are much more drawn to work on Madison Avenue in New York City, the advertising capital of the world. However, in this case, the advertising agency requires a top executive who is willing to relocate to Detroit. Furthermore, they must be willing to make that move at a time when the city is going bankrupt. With companies and their senior leadership teams leaving the Motor City in droves, we have to find a senior executive with the courage to do just the opposite.

The Solution

The Good Search uncovers a critical piece of intelligence for the Detroit President search: a hot national agency that is growing too fast. Executives are under-resourced, overworked, and motivated to leave. The Good Search then asks, “Which executives from the target company might be more willing to make a move to Detroit?” The answer? An executive who grew up in a similar industrial city: Buffalo, New York.

The Results

Just 16 business days after launch, The Good Search presents the candidate who was hired as President, one of six screened, qualified and interested candidates that we developed. The client then hires a second candidate, at no additional cost, to serve as a successor to the president.

• 2 Business Days: Target candidate profiles
• 5 Business Days: Presented the first candidate
• 16 business Days: Presented winning candidate hired as President
• Value-Add: 130 senior executive profiles
• Bonus Hire: Recruitment of 2nd in-command successor at no additional cost (For more on the cost of executive search, check out our Guide to Executive Search Pricing .)
• He leads the team that saves the $25 million luxury automotive account.
• He delivers a 2-year, $30 million project for the Big 3 automaker on time and on budget.
• The project is heralded as a key contributing factor in the automaker’s turnaround.
• He implements a new Delivery Services Department responsible for taking the agency’s net profitability from 15% to 22%+ during a 2-year period and delivering $8+ million in new service-line revenue (Social CRM).
• After 3 years as President, he is promoted to Country President.

Got Questions? Let’s talk.

No search firm is the right firm for every search every time. Yet we make it a practice to listen to what you’re trying to accomplish and we try to help, regardless.

[email protected]

+1(908)854-0425

Case Studies

Executive Search Excellence for a BPM Solutions Provider

Product Management Expertise for a Global Professional Services Firm

Executive Search Expertise for a Rapidly Growing Hospitality Startup

Executive Search for a Leading Global IT Consulting Firm 

Executive Search for a Leading IT Services Company

Executive Search for a Global Business Process Transformation Company

Executive Recruitment for Leading Telecom Services

Executive Search Excellence for a Leading Consulting Firm 

Executive Talent Acquisition for an Upcoming FMCG Brand 

A truly professional theme designed for businesses and business consulting.

C-Suite Executive Review

Executing the perfect search

of prospects

Interviewed, 50% recommended

to complete where industry average is 90

in terms of race and gender

Key Take-aways

• Interviewed 6% of prospects, recommended 50%, client interviewed 100% of those
• Search completed in 75 days. The industry average is 90 days
• The final slate was two-thirds deiverse both in terms of race and genders

A change communications agency based in Toronto and Chicago that has worked with Fortune 1000-sized organizations for over 25 years to help leaders inform, engage, and inspire their employees.

The company retained Felix to search for a Managing Director of their Chicago office.  They had moved an employee from Toronto to Chicago to open the office 4 years earlier and she now wanted to return.  The Chicago office only had 3 junior level employees so essentially this was a startup opportunity for an agency with a 25-year track record.

The role of the Managing Director focused on 4 critical elements: 1) business development, 2) expanding client relationships and ensuring delivery, 3) leaderships skills, recruiting talent, developing the team, and 4) operational oversight for the office, managing a P&L.

The client’s deep industry knowledge helped identify target firms however his reliance on evaluating candidates based on degrees of separation from his own network was a challenge.  Additionally, there weren’t a lot of agencies that specialize in change/internal communications so the pool of prospects with direct experience was limited.  Early in the search the client identified business development as key to the job which helped focus our attention on the differentiating skillset that was critical to the successful candidate.  Business development is not a skill that is well developed at most agencies and the compensation of existing Managing Directors or Principals at agencies and consulting firms was out of our reach.

Impact & Results 

With nearly 100 original prospects identified, 6 candidates went through multiple rounds of Felix interviews and assessments.  We then recommended the 3 top candidates to the client to interview.  The successful candidate was veteran communicator, and industry leader of more than 20 years, with a wealth of corporate communications experience, and former Founder/CEO of several public relations agencies.   The search was completed in 10 weeks. The efficiency of the project was a result of open and timely communication and a sense of urgency on both sides.

Transitioning to Board work

May 26, 2023 | Executive Search , The C-Suite Advisory

Snapshot Tania was a successful CFO at a large public company and had just received her retirement package after 15 years at that company. Problem Tania knew that she wanted to join boards but had never needed to proactively seek out roles in the past and wasn’t sure...

Finding a leader the role they deserve

Key Take-aways Found a CEO-in-waiting the perfect CEO role Significantly increased compensation Remained in their preferred location Snapshot Jane had been the Division President leading a $1B industry segment for a large multi-billion dollar packaging company. She...

A talent strategy for growth

Key Take-aways Created a sustainable culture of organizational citizenship Provided ongoing leadership development support to 40+ employees and leaders Created, and implement the Aspiring Leaders training program Snapshot The client is one of the world's largest...

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Case Studies

Through strategic leadership recruitment, Boyden facilitated our client's transformation into a fully compliant SEC Registered Investment Advisor, strengthening their oversight model.

Discover how Tabacalera USA, a leader in the premium cigar market, partnered with Boyden Miami to revolutionize their supply chain operations, navigating challenges and achieving unprecedented success in record time.

Discover how a rapidly-growing fintech firm, assembled a dynamic team of sales professionals to effectively sell its cutting-edge wealth management platform and fuel expansion across key global markets.

Our client, a leading private market solutions provider in higher education, grappled with leveraging dispersed data to drive innovation. Seeking to empower its university's mission, the organization embarked on a transformative journey, pivotal to which was the search for a Chief Data Officer.

Through strategic recruitment tactics, a prominent asset management firm addressed a significant gap in a high alpha potential category by recruiting top decile performers, successfully filling the void while also achieving remarkable growth.

This case study highlights the recruitment strategy of a tech-savvy independent director for a leading insurance provider in the trucking industry, emphasizing the alignment between expertise in technology and investment.

Client Success Stories

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• Current Searches

Case Studies

Ccy’s executive search and talent acquisition solutions are at the core of our services..

Succession planning, consulting and training and leadership development are the key benefits you get working with CCY. For over 40 years we developed and refined a full suite of service offerings that are scalable, flexible, holistic and completely customizable.

Check out a few of our case studies that span several industries.

Case Study | Legal and Compliance

• Top 100 NYS Law Firm

Case Study | Manufacturing

• Privately Owned International Manufacturer

Case Study | Non-Profit

Case study | non-profit (confidential), case study | non-profit/healthcare.

• President/CEO Search

Case Study | Real Estate

• Large Privately Held Real Estate Investment Trust

Kathy Freeman Company | Executive Search | Investment Industry

Executive Search & Human Capital Consulting for Financial Services

Executive Search Case Study – Hiring A COO & CEO Successor

Kathy Freeman Godfrey March 23, 2021

This case study, based on one of Kathy Freeman Company’s successful search engagements, is intended to illustrate our unique approach to providing strategic advisory and executive search services to investment firms across the U.S.

Our Client:

A $5 billion independent wealth advisory firm that has served institutional fiduciaries and high net worth families for over three decades.

The Challenge:

The Founder & CEO was looking to hire the firm’s first Chief Operating Officer to streamline operations and eventually become the CEO’s successor. There were several fundamental challenges within this assignment:

• The CEO had never partnered with an executive search firm and was a bit skeptical about the process and path to success.
• Since the CEO wasn’t handing off any of his current responsibilities, the job description and mandate, along with the day-to-day role of the COO position, had to be carefully crafted from scratch.
• The skillsets and experience for a typical COO role were insufficient in this instance because this COO would be eventually elevated to CEO. As a result, we needed to factor in the competencies and intangibles required to become a CEO. Many operational executives don’t possess the leadership qualities and client-focused sensibility to become a CEO.
• The compensation package was at market for the COO role, but it didn’t include enough incentives for an executive being groomed for the CEO role.

Developing A Solution:

To properly define the position and support the CEO’s goal of identifying his succession plan, we did the following:

• Solidified the CEO’s succession timeline and determined which tasks he’d like to gradually hand off
• Identified the skills and experience required for this role as well as the areas the current CEO would develop
• Discussed the benefits of building a broad and inclusive slate of talent
• Confirmed the desired outcomes of the CEO and the Board of Directors in this new hire
• Conducted a cultural audit of the senior leadership team
• Benchmarked the role with the competitive landscape to ensure that the job description would be attractive
• Defined a compensation structure that made the opportunity compelling, given the competitive landscape for talent
• Discussed the benefit of leveraging a psychometric assessment tool for finalist candidates

Our Approach:

Our approach in a consulting engagement like this is to help educate a CEO about the market for talent. Since he had never hired a COO, he wasn’t sure what he was looking for in a potential successor. One of our goals was to present a broad slate of qualified candidates with operational skills and experience as well as leadership potential.

Next, we gathered input from the senior leadership team. We sought to identify operational deficiencies at the firm and potential areas of improvement. We then translated these insights into a position description.

During the process, it became clear that this particular search was more challenging than the standard COO search – many of the operational executives we interviewed didn’t have the DNA to become a CEO. Leadership dynamism is an intangible that isn’t apparent in someone’s resume. It requires engagement and dialogue. Many COO candidates were lacking the client-facing skills and experience required to become CEO. As a result, we reconvened with the CEO to determine his willingness to coach a potential successor.

We ultimately presented candidates from FinTech, the U.S. Military, Wealth Management, and Investment Management. Some were less experienced but within our client’s preferred compensation range. Others had the operational expertise but came from outside of the wealth management industry. Still, others had the experience and skillsets but needed a compensation package that was more than our client was inclined to consider.

Initially, the CEO was attracted to a highly polished COO candidate from outside the industry who was within the compensation budget. Ultimately, this candidate decided against working in an entrepreneurial environment and dropped out of consideration. The next candidate our client became interested in was outside of the compensation budget. Our client stepped up to meet the candidate’s compensation needs, but for personal reasons, this individual had to withdraw from consideration. Other candidates were within the compensation parameters but didn’t possess the CEO capabilities our client desired.

At that point, we recommended that the CEO increase the total compensation to attract stronger candidates. He consented which gave us the latitude to engage new candidates and re-engage with those who originally told us they needed more compensation.

Now armed with a more competitive compensation package, the finalist candidates during the second stage of the search were exceptionally strong operationally and possessed the right DNA to be the CEO’s successor. Our client ultimately hired an operations executive who worked locally within the industry. She brought extensive experience with the front office, back office, products, building and leading teams, and working directly with clients.

Key Takeaways:

After the search was completed, our client realized he was unaware of the numerous facets that needed to be addressed during this succession planning search. He recognized he didn’t understand the competitive landscape for talent and the compensation level required for this type of role. He also acknowledged that he underestimated the challenge of finding a COO with the skillsets necessary to step in as his successor.

Using our consultative approach, we conducted a complete assessment of the market and analyzed the talent pool by backgrounds, skills, and compensation requirements. To make sure this succession hire would be successful, it was crucial that our client had a deep understanding of the inherent trade-offs in identifying the perfect fit.

About Kathy Freeman Company

Kathy Freeman Company is a U.S. based strategic advisor to the investment industry and a national, retained, executive search firm. Named a Forbes Top 250 Executive Recruiting Firm in 2018 & 2019.

KATHY FREEMAN COMPANY 805.542.0800

White Papers

• Talent Trends Report – Asset Management Leadership – January 2024
• Talent Trends Report – Asset Management Leadership – December 2022
• Talent Trends Report – Asset Management Leadership - 2021

Recent Blogs

• Productivity: Its Heightened Importance Today In Asset Management Distribution
• How Best-In-Class Marketing Leaders Differentiate Themselves
• Re-Engineering Retention
• Aggregation – Is it Working for Wealth Management?

Executive search for the way you work.

View all of our case studies here

SmartBear Appoints Top Sales Talent Melissa Campbell as Chief Revenue Officer

ON Partners is proud to have collaborated with SmartBear in finding the organization’s Chief Revenue Officer.

ON Partners helps build Niche leadership team

ON Partners, over the last few years, has collaborated with Niche and its CEO to grow its executive leadership team.

We build C-level leadership teams across sectors. View our C-level work.

Our expert consultants specialize in building board leadership teams. See our results.

Talent + People

View our track record for placing HR executives across a variety of industries.

Procurement + Supply Chain + Operations

We are at the forefront of identifying supply chain leaders across sourcing, operations, logistics, and more.

Go-To-Market Sales + Marketing

We offer go-to-market sales and marketing executive search across a range of industries. Check out our results.

Technology + Engineering + Security

View our recent executive appointments for CTO, CIO, CPO, CISO, and more.

Finance + Accounting

We work with the top financial leaders driving innovation and change. See our results.

Digital + Data + Innovation

The digital transformation era has led to a demand for innovative and data-driven leaders. See our work.

Research + Development

See our research & development appointments, primarily in the life sciences sector.

We are ranked as one of the most prominent PE executive search firms in the nation.

PE Portfolio Companies

We work across PE-backed organizations to build leadership teams.

We place C-level and board leadership teams across a range of public organizations.

VC / Growth Equity Fund

We are built to be as nimble and quick as high-growth organizations. See our work in VC and growth equity.

VC / Growth Equity Companies

We understand the unique operational needs of high-growth companies. Check out our recent work.

See our expertise across the technology sector including enterprise software, SaaS, hardware, and more.

Consumer Products + Services

See our work across the consumer sector including retail, online marketplaces, CPG and more.

Professional Services

View our expertise across fintech, insurtech, banking, accounting and more.

Life Sciences

We have deep expertise across biotechnology, digital health, diagnostics and more.

Our work in industrial spans across automotive, equipment, plastics, transportation and more.

A growing expertise across solar, cleantech, LED and more.

A better diverse experience starts with ON.

See all of our DEI work here

Omega Optical, an Artemis Capital Company, Appoints New Chief Executive Officer

Omega Optical (“Omega”), an Artemis company, announced the appointment of David Cooper as its new Chief Executive Officer, effective 4 June 2024.

Liquid Web Appoints Chief Growth Officer to Spearhead Strategic Expansion

Liquid Web, a leading provider of premium hosting for small to midsize businesses, announced the strategic appointment of Sachin Puri as Chief Growth Officer (CGO).

Our approach works.

See all of our recent wins here

Press Release: ON Partners Recognized on Forbes’ List of America’s Best Executive Recruiting Firms

ON Partners, the leading pure-play executive search firm has been once again named to Forbes America’s Best Executive Recruiting Firms List.

ON Partners Named to Private Equity Recruiting Power 100

ON Partners has been named, for the fifth year in a row, on the Private Equity Recruiting Power 100 list by Hunt Scanlon. 

Successful Placements.

See our recent successful executive appointments here

We don’t follow tradition, we create a new path.

See our work get recognized here

Press Release: ON Partners Champions Soft Skills and Human Engagement in AI-Enhanced Executive Search

As AI advances, the need for human touch in the executive recruitment process becomes even more critical to unlocking soft skills.

Press Release: ON Partners Reveals Executive Women Secure Higher Base Salaries Than Men

The 2024 Women’s Report report reveals a positive trend as the gender pay gap is narrowing year-over-year (YoY).

Our partners share their expertise across executive search.

View our most recent ON blogs here

Ask ON Series: Ep 03 – How to Craft a Compelling Board Biography?

In our Ask ON series, learn four quick tips on how to craft a compelling board biography for future board appointments.

Navigating the Leadership Landscape: Characteristics of an Early-Stage SaaS CEO

In this article, Seth Harris, partner at ON Partners explores the key leadership characteristics that distinguish successful CEOs at the early stages of a SaaS venture.

Case Studies .

Take a look at just a few case studies that detail how ON Partners solved problems and delivered the right results for our clients.

Melissa Campbell

Chief Revenue Officer

SmartBear appoints top sales talent

SmartBear , a leading provider of software development and visibility tools backed by Francisco Partners and Vista Equity, needed a new Chief Revenue Officer to drive growth and scale revenues across the organization.

THE EXECUTION

With over 200 sales and revenue search appointments completed over the last 3 years, our partners were able to craft the ideal candidate profile. 

Melissa Campbell, the company’s next Chief Revenue Officer  brings 30 years of experience in enterprise software sales for companies ranging from early-stage venture-backed to large public organizations to lead SmartBear’s global sales team. 

“Great experience with ON Partners. Really appreciate how you worked with me through the entire process. Thank you team!!” – SmartBear

Crafting a solution for Papa John’s

ON Partners was retained to undertake a search for a new CFO – a key role that required an experienced executive with fresh ideas and an appetite for innovation.

THE APPROACH

Ann Gugino, former SVP of Financial Planning and Analysis at Target Corporation, was the first person the client interviewed and ultimately they decided she was the right leader to join their executive team as CFO.

“ON Partners gave us a whole new candidate list that was bright and refreshing,” said Marvin Boakye, Papa John’s Chief People and Diversity Officer

Building diverse leadership teams with Logitech

THE BACKGROUND

With a strong focus on building a diverse organization of leaders, Logitech looked to ON to craft solutions that worked for the organization and its inclusive goals.

ON has partnered with Logitech to place diverse senior executives representing a range of roles, from marketing to supply chain to technology.

Since 2014, ON Partners is proud to have partnered with Logitech on more than 30 successful executive searches utilizing the unique ON approach that drives results.

“Organized, prompt, clear, and most importantly, listeners. Every detail is addressed and done with a collegial tone that aligns to Logitech.” – Logitech

Tosin Okojie

Chief Financial Officer

ON helps build Niche leadership team

Niche , the leading platform connecting students and families with colleges and schools, has been in a period of rapid and planned growth, doubling its size within the last two years.

Collaborating with Niche since 2020, ON Partners is proud to have worked with the company to craft various leadership solutions over the years. 

With an understanding of Niche’s key story in the marketplace and consistent partners devoted to each assignment, ON has helped place a variety of executives, from finance and product, to human resources, to the customer experience and growth marketing.

“The time ON Partners invested to deeply understand our business and our unique opportunities enabled them to engage passive candidates with amazing experience, and get them excited about Niche!” – Niche

Janelle Sallenave

Intelycare Board of Directors

Building leadership during high growth

Intelycare was continuing to plan its expansion strategy and turned to ON Partners. They needed ON’s experience finding uniquely qualified candidates with expertise in high growth technology and two-sided marketplaces, to serve on its Board of Directors.

ON Partners was well positioned to identify high growth leaders for Intelycare based on ON’s historical expertise appointing leaders in the technology and SaaS spaces, in addition to its cross over expertise in the healthtech and life sciences sectors.

Janelle Sallenave, a former Uber executive who built Uber Eats into the largest food delivery service in the country, was selected to join the Intelycare Board of Directors.

“We’re thrilled to add Janelle, an executive with the talent, leadership skills, and the kind of experience that IntelyCare needs during this exciting period of expansion,” said John Shagoury, president and chief operating officer.

Amy Appleyard

Chief Sales Officer of LastPass

Building sales leadership in private equity-backed security company

SETTING THE STAGE

LastPass, a $200M fast-growing security company privately backed by Francisco Partners as the global leader in zero-knowledge password management, needed a new Chief Sales Officer to lead its sales organization into the next phase of growth, continuing to bolster global sales performance and contributing to customer satisfaction.

Solving the Problem

With over 100 executive sales search appointments for leading private equity funds completed, ON was positioned strongly in the market to identify, evaluate and filter through the most experienced candidates for the CSO role. 

Amy Appleyard, a strategic sales leader with demonstrated success overseeing cross-functional teams to improve the customer experience, drive sales, and increase retention in SaaS-based sales organizations, was selected for the Chief Sales Officer role.

“Amy has a proven track record of unifying the customer journey across all inside and outside sales avenues while improving the customer experience,” said Karim Toubba, CEO at LastPass.

Raleigh McClayton

Chief Executive Officer of Brightspot

Tailwind – Building leadership in private equity

THE CHALLENGE

Tailwind Capital, a middle-market private equity firm investing in industrial and business services companies was searching for a CEO for one of their portfolio SaaS companies. They needed an executive search firm with highly-engaged and experienced senior partners that would be involved in every step of the search and ON Partners is uniquely modeled to deliver exactly that customer experience.

Crafting The Solution

By combining their years of experience placing CEOs within private equity-backed organizations and deep-rooted knowledge of the software and tech industry, our partners crafted the ideal target CEO profile and personally spoke with targeted candidates.

Raleigh McClayton, an executive leader who previously served both B2B and B2C brands was appointed first as the new Chief Executive Officer of Arrowstream and within a few years, appointed to Brightspot as its CEO.

“ The team, our mission, and our best-in-class products make me incredibly humbled and excited to lead this organization,” said McClayton. “It’s clear the company is obsessed with helping customers manage and support their digital content. The foundation of the business was built on giving back to the community, and that facet is certainly appealing and pervades the company. We continue to invest heavily in our product and people. I’m thrilled to partner with David and the rest of the executive team moving forward.”

Our approach is untraditional – by choice. We got rid of what wasn’t working (unnecessary layers, outdated practices, cookie-cutter solutions) and envisioned a firm made up of partners without limits.

Our partners are less limited in what types of companies and candidates they can work with or how they grow their practices. Each of our partners brings specialized expertise across industries and functions at the C-level and board.

EXECUTIVE SEARCH CASE STUDY BOARD-LEVEL SEARCH CASE STUDY TALENT MAPPING & SUCCESSION PLANNING CASE STUDY OUR TRACK RECORD

Executive search case study.

The Challenge

With one of our longest-established global banking clients facing considerable scrutiny due to fast-evolving regulation, whilst dealing with the unexpected departure of the previous incumbent and other issues created by the Brexit planning process, implementation of MiFID II, and approaching introduction of the Senior Managers and Certification Regime, we were entrusted with running an accelerated but thorough search to find a Managing Director-level compliance professional with broad corporate and investment banking compliance leadership experience.

The Solution

Thanks to our market knowledge and network in this niche leadership space, we were able to quickly undertake a thorough research and engagement process covering large and mid-size banking organisations and similar and ultimately placed a highly reputable compliance expert with nearly three decades’ experience.

The Outcome

Our placed candidate has capably set the agenda since joining, reinvigorating the team, building strong relations with the regional Executive Committee and Board of Directors, resolving all pressing issues and exceeding weighty regulatory expectations.

Our client is the London-based, UK-regulated subsidiary of a Japan-headquartered global corporate and investment banking group.

  Please get in touch to find how we can help with your Executive Search Project.

COMPLIANCE FINANCIAL CRIME RISK MANAGEMENT INTERNAL AUDIT FINANCE THE BOARD

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Chief Legal Officer

Due to the extremely large scope of the role, the candidate pool for this search was small. We produced a list of relative competitors and targeted suitable candidates within each organisation. Due to our strong network many of the candidates were already on our database.

Chief Executive Officer – Hospital Group

In close collaboration with the client’s Board, we defined the necessary competencies required for the CEO role. Our research team put together a longlist of 100+ candidates in which we identified 15 profiles who had the necessary expertise and were open to relocate to Bahrain.

Global FP&A Director

A company in the luxury fashion world following the integration with the new American parent company involved us in the selection of the new Global FP&A Director.

Group CFO for Italy

A South African multinational that manages private clinics and diagnostic centres around the world asked us for support in identifying the Group CFO for Italy..

General Manager

Our client is one of the world leaders in the distribution of high-end perfumes, manages partnerships with the most prestigious maisons and collaborates with them in the development of brand awareness.

Information Technology

Our Client needed comprehensive help in building a company in Poland. We have recommended the best place and general principles of operation that will bring the company success. Our Client formed his vision and our fruitful cooperation began. At the beginning we recruited for General Manager.

HR Director

Hr & legal.

Our client wanted to hire a Managing Director and HR Manager, but decided to combine these roles and employ one person - HR Director. The recruitment project took a long time due to the demanding profile and location of our client's company.

Country Manager

Manufacturing.

An International manufacturing business seeking a replacement Country Manager in this highly confidential assignment.

Managing Director

An International technology manufacturer was seeking a Polish native who was ideally fluent in both German and English to lead this start-up operation in Poland.

Travel & Leisure

Our client didn’t have direct operations in Colombia, they needed to find a General Manager that could build, inaugurate and manage a new hotel in Bogota.

Chief Investment Officer

Financial services.

Our contact for this search project was with a Regional Vice President based in north America who tasked us with finding suitable candidates for this sensitive role, that would be reporting to him from Chile.

Retail Industry

We were approached by one of the world’s most recognized clothing companies to recruit a CFO for their recently acquired subsidiary in Argentina.

Commercial Manager

We provided our services to help hire a Commercial Director for a client needing to bring its business to the next level in terms of sales and quality in their processes, and at the same time bring efficiency and productivity to its sales teams.

Electrical Equipment

Hays Executive was tasked with finding a General Manager for the Argentine offices of a leading global Electrical Equipment company with presence across several markets in Latin America.

Commercial Director

Life sciences.

Hays Executive was hired to find the Commercial Director with a responsibility over North Latam region that in a midterm would be the succession plan of the current General Manager who was going to be promoted to another role.

Hays Executive was tasked with finding a General Manager for a leading global investment supermarket for private investors that was newly established in Poland.

Management Board

We developed our relationship with this large national ferry services company by securing them talent for a number of commercial positions in middle management.

A well-known European brand operating in the automotive retail sector engaged the services of our Belgian team to secure a new Benelux Country Manager.

Chief Finance Officer

A leading finance company selected Hays Executive to identify a CFO for their company based in Spain.

Quality Director

Hays drove the executive search for a Quality Director in the aerospace industry in France.

Finance Director

Hays drove the executive search for a multi-national life sciences company looking for a new Finance Director in Latin America.

Vice President and CFO

We supported our client in their search for a Vice President to lead their Brazilian and Latin America businesses, with the challenge to develop integrated solutions for its customers,

We provided our services to help hire a Commercial Director for a client needing to overhaul its business processes and policies, while bringing efficiency and productivity to its teams.

Hays Executive was tasked with finding a General Manager for a market leader in the automotive sector.

Operations Director

One of the leading companies in specific distribution, part of an international group with its corporate HQ in France,

The local Belgian production unit of a machinery manufacturer and distributor, part of an international holding group, asked us to search for a Financial Director.

Interim Chief Financial Officer

As a result of internal promotion, our brief was to source an external candidate for the post of Finance Director.

HR Planning and Development Director

One of the leading integrated building materials solutions providers in the Czech Republic with operations in more than 50 countries around the world,

Product Manager

Hays Executive was asked to recruit a Product Manager responsible for establishing a new product in the Czech market for a fast growing multinational insurance company.

Nordic Finance Director

An international listed company and leader in their sector tasked Hays with sourcing a Nordic Finance Director.

Turbine Energy Expert

We were tasked to source a very complex and specific Turbine Energy Expert, a role that the client had had great difficulty in filling.

We were set a brief in Denmark to recruit their new Danish Director, a person with proven industry experience.

Production Manager

As a result of previous contact we had with this multi-specialist firm that included a plastics factory in France, we were tasked with finding suitable candidates for this sensitive role.

We were approached by a manufacturer of driver information systems who supplies the world’s leading automotive brands. Located in various European countries, we were set the challenge to find the right person to spearhead the opening of their very first office in France.

The challenge was to find a business oriented HR profile with very strong generalist skills but also a good track record in HR project management at corporate level.

The challenge was to discreetly identify outstanding individuals within a niche industry sector, in which specialists could be based in North America, Asia, the UK or Continental Europe.

Plant Manager

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Intellerati tracks critical metrics of all our executive search research , diversity recruiting research , and  executive talent mapping research engagements. While the metrics of each engagement may vary, we measure what we do to discover opportunities to raise the bar. We are dedicated to innovating faster-better-smarter ways to deliver game-changing talent. This is why Intellerati makes it a practice to conduct case studies.

Our executive recruiting research case studies give us the chance to conduct research about our work to tease out the many ways we help our clients. Sometimes we don’t understand all that clients value until we ask. Moreover, our case studies help clients understand our approach and the potential it holds to make recruiting smarter. Because smarter is better.

Every one of our recruiting research case studies is rooted in fact-based metrics that document Intellerati’s exceptional results. Below are case studies exemplifying our domain expertise and subject-matter knowledge that informs our executive search research services: candidate sourcing and candidate identification ; candidate development ; talent mapping and org charts; and  diversity recruiting research .

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Diverse Executive Talent Pool Case Study

Case Study of Diverse Executive Talent Pool Case Study Scenario In our case study of a Diverse Executive Talent Pool, a global media and entertainment company retained Intellerati to identify and prof…

Top-Secret Executive Search Case Study

A technology giant engaged Intellerati to fill a mission-critical opening for which failure was not an option. The engagement was the ultimate needle-in-a-haystack search.  In fact, our client informe…

M&A Talent Ecosystem Research Case Study

Case Study of M&A Talent Ecosystem Research  Case Study Scenario Our client, a Fortune 100 technology company, retained Intellerati to conduct talent ecosystem research, a study of the talent…

President Executive Search Case Study

Case Study of Executive Search for President Case Study Scenario A case study of a President Executive Search. Intellerati was retained to help an advertising agency recruit its next President. Our cl…

Talent Pipeline for Management Consulting Case Study

Talent Pipeline Case Study Case Study Scenario Our case study features a talent pipeline that we built for executive recruiting at a global management consulting firm. Our client, one of the world’s l…

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Executive Search: A FMCG CFO Case Study

Milos Tucakovic

Managing Partner Global Sector Leader Consumer Products and Services

Belgrade , Serbia

>The Background 

A growing fruit and vegetable distributor searching for a cfo.

A top distributor of fresh exotic fruits and vegetables in Europe was searching for a financial leader to partner with its CEO. The aim was to advance the company’s professionalization and growth, given that the finance leader would oversee finance and IT for a company that generates around €500 million in revenue.

The company, which is privately held, is strategically important to its parent company and has a reputation for rapid growth. Currently, the company is expanding into new markets and adding more fruit and vegetable categories to its offerings.

> The Challenge

Seeking an entrepreneurial cfo capable of navigating a complex governance structure.

To excel in the role of the new CFO, candidates needed to have a deep understanding of the company’s intricate and fast-moving supply chain, from growers to retailers. Aside from financial optimization, they also needed to be resilient and possess an openness to the company’s unique and entrepreneurial culture.

Moreover, they had to be capable of proactively managing the company’s complicated governance structure. Given the company’s rapid growth, the new CFO would also have to be able to assist in planning and implementing ERP.

> The Solution 

Breaking the mould to uncover exceptional candidates.

With a clear leadership profile in hand, Stanton Chase quickly began its search for the perfect candidate. We sought out financial leaders from a variety of industries, prioritizing soft skills and an entrepreneurial mindset over traditional qualifications and experience.

By looking beyond the usual pool of candidates, we were able to identify exceptional individuals who could bring about real change and foster growth.

> Feedback 

A top cfo with fmcg and retail experience appointed 42 days later.

Stanton Chase successfully completed this search in just one and a half months.

The candidate who was selected after rigorous interviews and assessments is an exceptional fit for the job. They have experience in both retail and FMCG, working with industry leaders and scale-ups. Their experience and success in driving industry leaders forward will take our client to new heights.

> Our Team

World-leading experts in consumer products and services.

This executive search assignment was expertly led by Stanton Chase Amsterdam , with support from Milos Tucakovic , Global Practice Leader for Consumer Products and Services . With over 15 years of executive search experience and a 30-year background in human resources and management, Milos contributed valuable insights to the process.

Leveraging Stanton Chase’s comprehensive knowledge of the consumer goods and services sector, as well as their understanding of international markets, the team successfully identified the perfect candidate. This individual not only met the client’s functional requirements but also effortlessly aligned with the company culture.

“Leveraging our comprehensive knowledge of essential CFO qualities and a tailored leadership profile, we efficiently identified and secured the ideal candidate to meet our client’s needs.” — Milos Tucakovic, Global Practice Leader for Consumer Products and Services

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Executive Search Case Studies

A national enterprise software and business intelligence consultancy was having trouble identifying and retaining qualified sales directors. The company had relied unsuccessfully on referrals, job ads, and third-party recruiters for years without success.

Cowen Partners was referred to the company by a new board member. With extensive experience in enterprise B2B sales recruiting, Cowen Partners was able to quickly identify and quantify top performing sales people at the client’s competitors in various marketplaces. Cowen Partners went on to place eight director-level sales professionals on their national sales team, directly contributing to the client’s revenue and growth.

A $140M community organization wished to replace their retiring CEO. The board saw this as an opportunity to hire a diverse candidate that better represented the community and customers they served.

After discussing the client’s goals and future ambitions, Cowen Partners set out to provide a pool of qualified candidates who were representative of the client’s customers and community. Three highly-qualified candidates met the criteria, and one was ultimately hired to lead the company to new heights.

$600M ecommerce retailer’s Corporate Controller gave two weeks’ notice and reached out to Cowen Partners for a solution.

Cowen Partners was engaged by the company’s CFO to assist with the search. Thanks to Cowen Partner’s extensive network, the position was filled in just two weeks.

One of the nation’s largest seafood companies had just built a brand new, state-of-the-art processing facility when they retained Cowen Partners’ services to find a world class General Manager.

Cowen Partners identified four highly-qualified candidates across the country, all of whom worked directly for the competition. Three were interviewed, two were considered, and three months later, the company had an accepted offer and a cross-country relocation.

A $1.4B publicly traded bank in a remote area required an industry experienced CFO with SEC and SOX experience.

Cowen Partners was able to source a renowned CFO who relocated for the role and immediately contributed to the company’s success through a deep financial analysis and needs assessment.

One of the country’s largest state-funded economic development associations needed to conduct a national search to replace a retiring Executive Director.

After extensive meetings with member and state representatives, Cowen Partners was able to determine the association’s need for an experienced, mid-career Executive Director with a background in international politics, industry associations, and product marketing. Cowen Partners provided them with five qualified candidates from across the country, with a highly-qualified hire four months later.

A $50M dental group had just lost their CFO and needed a replacement immediately.

After reviewing the client’s needs, Cowen Partners was able to find a private-equity experienced CFO with a background in Big 4 and healthcare.

A $3B publicly traded company had struggled to fully staff their SOX financial and IT audit department, with some vacancies remaining open for years.

After being engaged by the CFO, Cowen Partners took a deep dive into the client company’s recruiting processes and discussed the ideal candidate profile. Five months later, the company had a fully staffed department, including a team of staff, seniors, and one manager. Cowen Partners even provided interim contract coverage in the meantime to allow for continued coverage of department responsibilities during the search.

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Deloitte’s Pixel: A Case Study on How to Innovate from Within

If you’re an intrapreneur — or aspire to be one — this episode is for you.

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In 2014, Deloitte launched Pixel to facilitate open talent and crowdsourcing for client engagements that need specific expertise — like machine learning or digital production. But uptake across the organization was slow, and some internal stakeholders resisted outsourcing consulting work to freelance talent.

In this episode, Harvard Business School professor Mike Tushman discusses his case, “Deloitte’s Pixel (A): Consulting with Open Talent,” which breaks down the challenges the firm’s leadership faced in growing Pixel within the firm — and how they overcame them.

He explains how the firm selected a leader for Pixel who already had credibility and strong social networks within Deloitte. He also shares how Pixel established credibility by collaborating with early adopters within the firm to generate positive client results.

Key episode topics include: leadership, disruptive innovation, innovation, organizational change, talent management, business consulting services, crowdsourcing, freelance talent, intrapreneurship.  

HBR On Leadership curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock the best in those around you. New episodes every week.

• Listen to the original Cold Call episode: Transforming Deloitte’s Approach to Consulting (2022)
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HANNAH BATES: Welcome to HBR on Leadership , case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, hand-selected to help you unlock the best in those around you.

Deloitte is one of the largest consulting firms in the world.  But, like many established firms, innovation is a challenge.

In 2014, Deloitte launched “Pixel” to   – like machine learning or digital production. But uptake across the organization was slow, and some internal stakeholders resisted outsourcing consulting work to freelance talent.

In this episode, Harvard Business School professor Mike Tushman breaks down the challenges Deloitte’s leadership faced in growing Pixel within the firm – and how they overcame them. You’ll learn how the firm selected a leader for Pixel who had credibility and strong social networks within Deloitte. You’ll also learn how Pixel established its own credibility by collaborating with early adopters within the firm to generate positive client results. And you’ll learn how Deloitte’s senior leaders built a narrative of innovation and adaptation around Pixel.

If you’re an entrepreneur – or an aspiring one  – this episode is for you. It originally aired on Cold Call in April 2022. Here it is.

BRIAN KENNY: There are few topics in business media covered as widely and as deeply as innovation. A Google search on the term business innovation yields 672 million results. Harvard Business Review alone has close to 6,000 active articles on this topic. It’s the subject that never gets old because it’s inherently about change. Oh, and it’s really hard to do, especially if you’re in a place that is set in its ways. Management guru, Peter Drucker, famously said, “Innovate or die.” And there are far too many examples of firms that fail to follow that advice and pay the price. But in this episode, we’ll focus on a firm that’s trying to get it right. Today on Cold Call , we’ll discuss the case entitled, “Deloitte’s Pixel: Consulting with Open Talent” with Professor Mike Tushman. I’m your host, Brian Kenny, and you’re listening to Cold Call on the HBR Presents Network. Mike Tushman’s work focuses on relations between technological change, executive leadership, and organization adaptation. And he has just published a new book called Corporate Explorers: How Corporations Beat Startups at the Innovation Game . That sounds exactly like the topic we’re going to discuss today, Mike. Thanks for joining me.

MICHAEL TUSHMAN: Hey, Brian, it’s so great to be with you.

BRIAN KENNY: Yeah. It’s fun to have you on the show. I want to talk about the case and I want to hear how those ideas relate to the ideas in Corporate Explorers , because there’s obviously a lot of crossover. We’ve had cases before that touch on this topic of how to innovate from within when you are in a well-established firm. And I think it’s so timely and relevant because many of our listeners are probably working in large established firms and they want to know how to innovate. They want to be the person who brings those energy and ideas to the surface. So, thanks for being here today to talk about it.

MICHAEL TUSHMAN: Hey great, Brian, looking forward to engaging you and hopefully your audience in our work on the corporate explorer.

BRIAN KENNY: Awesome, let’s just dive right in. Let me ask you to tell us what is the central theme of the case and what’s your cold call when you start the case discussion in the classroom.

MICHAEL TUSHMAN: The central theme of the case, and indeed the central theme of my course, is to help our students build organizations that don’t drop in the face of outside technical change. That’s the basic point of my course is to empower my students with the research in my field, so they don’t fall prey to the sickness that most incumbent organizations have when the world changes sharply, whether it’s because of technology or because of COVID. My cold call is a double barrel cold call, Brian. The cold call to Balaji, Balaji Bondili, everybody, is: it’s either go big or go home. What are you going to do? And why are you going to do it? That’s my Balaji cold call to the corporate explorer.

BRIAN KENNY: Yeah.

MICHAEL TUSHMAN: The other cold call I have is I ask the leaders of Deloitte Consulting, and by the way, this is a very, very successful organization, they’re at the top of the game, and I’m asking Matt David, who’s the head of Deloitte’s consulting business, why is he spending so much time on experimentation? You’ve got a great franchise. You’re doing super well in traditional consulting. Why so much time on experimentation? Those are my two cold calls, Brian.

BRIAN KENNY: All right. That’s a great way to start it off. And I love the idea of role playing. Maybe we should talk more about that as we get into the conversation and I know, you told me just before we started here, that you taught the course yesterday.

MICHAEL TUSHMAN: Yeah.

BRIAN KENNY: And Balaji was here, so you’ve got all these fresh ideas percolating. So, this is going to be great. This is like right in the moment. Tell us a little bit about how this course relates to your research and to the ideas in Corporate Explorers .

MICHAEL TUSHMAN: My research has been from the get go on how incumbents deal with outside technical change. I went to Northeastern University as an undergraduate. I was an engineer co-op and I worked at a firm that was called General Radio, GenRad, and it was filled with these great, fantastic engineers going back and forth, talking about the celebration of how great General Radio was, outside technical change, all of a sudden my carpool friends don’t have a job. I was totally scarred by this. How could a firm filled with fantastic engineers fail so quickly? My model was you have great technical talent, wow, you can do anything. Well, it turns out that they were strangled by the arrogance of success. And I have been studying that for decades now with my students. So, the point of my course is to help students understand several things, Brian. One is this notion of dynamic capabilities are rooted in playing two games well, simultaneously. A game of executing your existing strategy better than anybody on the planet, that’s one game. The second game is exploring into unknown futures. To play this explore and exploit game simultaneously, and those strategies are inconsistent. So, all of my work has been helping senior leaders deal with paradox and inconsistency. General Radio couldn’t do it, all these engineers were laid off. Second theme of my work and my course is organizations don’t change through incremental change by itself. They change through both incremental and punctuated change and those punctuated changes occur at these discontinuities. The third observation is the way you play this game is you don’t spin out the explore option. You have these ambidextrous organizations that explore and exploit simultaneously and the ambidextrous leader is the one who hosts contradiction.

MICHAEL TUSHMAN: And finally, the core idea of my book with Andy Binns and Charles O’Reilly, Corporate Explorer , is that it’s both top down, it’s from the C-level or the general manager level, and the entrepreneurs below in creating a social movement, so that firms evolve in this punctuated way.

BRIAN KENNY: And Deloitte’s a really interesting one for you to look at with regard to these topics. What’s the problem that they’re trying to solve in the context of this case?

MICHAEL TUSHMAN: What’s so unique about Deloitte is they actually don’t have a problem to solve. They are doing rockingly well in the high-end strategic consulting business. They have an opportunity to destabilize the consulting industry, at least according to the senior leaders, if they can figure out a new way of doing consulting that complements their existing way, they have the opportunity to disrupt the industry to their favor. So, it’s not that they have a problem to solve. It’s one of these rare examples of an opportunistic move by a really enlightened senior team to both do old-fashioned consulting really well and to do pixelated consulting really well simultaneously. And that is the challenge I want my students to leave prepared for is to lead into these opportunistic moments, which by the way, is partly organization renewal, Brian.

MICHAEL TUSHMAN: But it’s also personal renewal. It’s the Matt Davids of the world personally renewing how they lead because now they’re hosting this contradiction: old fashioned consulting, new consulting simultaneously.

BRIAN KENNY: Can you put a finer line on that? What is the difference between sort of old fashioned consulting and pixelated consulting?

MICHAEL TUSHMAN: Old fashioned consulting, the edge of this case, old fashioned consulting, at least at Deloitte, is Deloitte would… They had an HR strategy of hiring from the best business schools and then they train and socialize these MBAs to be trusted advisors, to be really brilliant with expertise, and information, and synthesizing that information in front of a client.

BRIAN KENNY: Yep.

MICHAEL TUSHMAN: And they do really well. That’s a business model that works.

BRIAN KENNY: We know a little about that here at Harvard business school.

MICHAEL TUSHMAN: Right. We sure do. Pixelating is completely different, Brian. Pixelating, what Balaji brings to the party is go to a client and say, “Here’s your strategic problem,” and they break it into components. And then they send the components of the work to freelance talent, gig talent, talent who in 100 years wouldn’t work for Deloitte, machine learning people, digital people, AI people, who don’t want to work for Deloitte. Balaji promises these really profoundly powerful platforms that bring talent to a client fast and inexpensive. That’s the difference, rather than having a bunch of really powerful consultants work on a project at a very high rate, Balaji gets better, faster, and less expensive client service with freelance talent. And it turns out it works really well. And the edge of the case is: this is really an identity threat at Deloitte.

MICHAEL TUSHMAN: It’s an identity threat of the consultants who own problems and solve problems, and it’s an identity threat to the firm because after all we’re Deloitte and we have this brand, and can we retain this brand and can we retain the identity of our professionals even while we do this fundamentally different form of consulting.

BRIAN KENNY: Yeah, and it’s a great example of disruption happening right from within, so that’s the tension for sure in the case. And I want to talk a little bit more about that. Deloitte founded an Office for Innovation to sort of drive this, talk a little bit about that office, and I’d love to hear more about Balaji, background, and why he decided to take this on. This seems like a really dicey move for somebody who’s trying to build a career within the firm.

MICHAEL TUSHMAN: Yeah. What’s interesting about Balaji Bondili is he is a professional interested in client services. And I don’t want to speak for Balaji, but my sense of Balaji is he’s not anchored to Deloitte. He’ll do this work wherever. And I think he has found a way to do great professional service work, great client service work, and has enough of an entrepreneurial flare to push this inside of Deloitte. What we’ve learned in our , book is there are a whole bunch of people like Balaji who tend to get ignored, is that they have the passion for entrepreneurialism. They have great change management skills and are able to help skeptical, in this case, partners change the coding of the work from a threat to an opportunity. And that is relatively rare. When a corporate explorer is able to help others who code that person as a threat to say, “Hey, wait a minute. Actually, I can do better client service work and I can do it too.” The beauty of Balaji is he had the entrepreneurial edge and he wasn’t in their face. He had a lot of respect for the partners at Deloitte and brought them a tool that could help them do their work better. So, partly it’s bottom up, Brian, and partly he could not have done this and he knows it, he could not have done it without really strong senior support with Matt David. What is,nice about the Deloitte case, Brian, is it starts with really senior level support, that is the head of U.S. Deloitte says we need an Office of Innovation, tax, audit, consulting. We need a view into the future and they create this Office of Innovation, which hosts roughly 60 experiments, Brian. And then Amy Feirn says in consulting, “I’m going to take some of those and bring them into consulting.” That was Balaji. There were maybe 20 experiments inside just consulting. So, the Office of Innovation was a corporate level hatchery, if you will. We talk about ideation and incubation going to scale, they incubate a bunch of things at corporate and then some of them are dropped down into the business units, tax, audit, in this case consulting. So, the corporate level Office of Innovation provides the overall senior support that permitted Matt David in consulting to experiment, which in turn permitted Balaji to be the corporate explorer.

BRIAN KENNY: What kind of a welcome did Balaji receive as he started to socialize this idea with the rank and file consultants, the people who were leading the client work?

MICHAEL TUSHMAN: It was a third of the partners said, “Hey, Balaji, this could be fantastic.” Two thirds said, “Please go away.” And it was either aggressive please go away or was passive aggressive, “Hey, we’ll study this Balaji.” And so, the nub of the case is if your Balaji, who knows he has something big, do you try to go big inside Deloitte or do you leave? Do you go home? And if you stay, what do you need from the leadership community to make this thing real?

BRIAN KENNY: You talked about some of the pilots that they launched and I imagine the pilots were a way to demonstrate the efficacy of this approach to people who were leading client teams and to get their buy-in,that they would think yeah, I can have it both ways. Right? Can you give some examples of what some of those pilots were? Because I’m curious again, about the pixelated approach and how different that sounds to me than what I’m familiar with having worked with consultancies over the years.

MICHAEL TUSHMAN: So, Balaji was pressed when Pixel was brought down into consulting to provide case and points, data points, will this thing work, will clients pay for this? What are client’s response to this? You’re not using Deloitte partners, you’re using freelance talent. Would clients buy this? They had projects with Richard Walker, who’s one of the individuals in the case, who was a partner in the banking piece of consulting, who actually loved it. And they would take strategy projects for one of their major clients, and it had a big AI machine learning piece to it, and they pixelated it and they got a great solution to this banking strategy. And the client thought it was better. Once Balaji had two or three of these examples, skeptical partners said, “Hey, wait a minute. What’s happening over here in banking with Richard Walker? And once credible leaders across the organization picked this up, Brian, then it took off like wildfire.

BRIAN KENNY: If you look at the tension that’s underlying this case, I have to admit, I probably would be in one of those two thirds, that group of two thirds consultants, who is like, wait a second, this is a threat to me and my role. If we’re going to have gig consultants coming in and doing all this client work, and it’s going to cost less, and they’re going to deliver a better product, that to me sounds like a real danger to my career. How did Balaji manage some of that tension that I’m sure he was hearing about from within the firm?

MICHAEL TUSHMAN: Yeah, that is the exact nub of my work on structural ambidexterity, Brian. It’s up to the corporate explorer to help these powerful partners recode this from a threat to an opportunity. Partly Balaji can do that by making it easy by not being in their faces, by being very solicitous of the partners need to do great client service work. The edge for your question is with Matt David, who was the leader of the consulting business, who had to create a narrative in his organization of we’re going to do the old kind of work, traditional consulting work better than anybody in the planet, and we’re going to go do this new work because the future is not the past and we’re going to experiment into the future. That’s the challenge of my ambidextrous leader, who is Matt David, who is pushing the organization that can celebrate the past, and can own the future, and they’re contradictory. That’s what the Matt Davids of the world have to bring to the party. And one of the things we’ve learned, and it’s a big part of my work with Charles O’Reilly and with Andy Binns, is one of the roles of the Matt Davids is to help create an identity for their firm or my friend, Ranjay Gulati, talks about purpose, as we aspire to be the world’s greatest consulting firm. This is my words, not theirs.

MICHAEL TUSHMAN: And if you’re Matt David with that kind of aspiration, or Srikant at HBS, we’re here to create leaders who make a difference in the world. Well, we can do that through Advanced Management Program (AMP) on campus and we can do that through AMP online.

MICHAEL TUSHMAN: And yeah, they’re completely different architectures, and structures, and cultures, but that’s what we’re all about, creating leaders who make a difference in the world. That kind of overarching purpose or identity helped Matt David at Deloitte with a narrative to his powerful partners to say, “Hey everybody, we’re going to embrace the future, and we’re going to embrace the past, and yes, it’s contradictory. We’re going to do it together to be the world’s greatest consulting firm.”

BRIAN KENNY: Yeah. And that takes leadership that is not just visionary, but also really client centric so that they’re not going to let the politics, the internal politics of the firm prevent them from pushing this forward because they know it’s the right thing in the end for client service.

MICHAEL TUSHMAN: When you have that kind of aspiration, world class client service, or the work I did with one of my doctoral students, Hila Lifshitz, on NASA. One of the things they found is that the scientists at NASA rejected open innovation, open research. And as soon as the leader said, “Hey, we’re here not to do great research, we’re here to keep astronauts safe in space,” that new coding permitted these scientists to do research the old fashioned way and the new way.

MICHAEL TUSHMAN: So, that passion, that identity, that strategic intent is a real important piece of my research of structural ambidexterity and how to make that work and is a big part of this Deloitte Pixel case.

BRIAN KENNY: Do you think… This is probably a question with no singular answer, but I’m going to ask it anyway. Do you think it’s harder to be an entrepreneur within a firm or to be an entrepreneur who’s starting your own thing and kind of putting it all together on your own?

MICHAEL TUSHMAN: I think it’s both really difficult, Brian. The challenge for the corporate explorer is less the capital markets, because the reason he’s going to do it at Deloitte is because Deloitte has the cash to fund it. But the risk is much more, can you get an organization to change?

BRIAN KENNY: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

MICHAEL TUSHMAN: Can you create a social movement? And the research is really clear, exploit kills explore. The better you are at doing what you’re currently doing, the worse you are at exploring. And the challenge for the corporate explorer is to create a social movement, when the powerful actors don’t want to do it. So, you can’t do it on your own, you have to do it both top down and bottom up. And the big aha for me in this research over the past 10 years, it’s not just top down, because we have many examples of top down leaders that get stuck because they’re no corporate explorers. So, it’s a combination of top down and bottom up that creates this social movement around change.

BRIAN KENNY: Let’s say we’ve got some senior executives that are listening to this podcast right now and they’re thinking, wow, I better get on this, how do they identify a corporate explorer within their midst? Do you advertise that as a new job? Or how do you think about that?

MICHAEL TUSHMAN: Wow. Great question. Our most successful corporate explorers are those individuals who have legitimacy and credibility inside your firm.

MICHAEL TUSHMAN: The combination of credibility, this individual has the technical capability, has the social networks in the firm, and they have an edge about them, an entrepreneurial edge around the future, those are the corporate explorers that work. What we know from our research, Brian, is the extent to which you go out and hire someone like that and bring them in, they’ll almost always fail.

BRIAN KENNY: Why is that?

MICHAEL TUSHMAN: Because they don’t have the social networks, they don’t have the credibility, they don’t have the legitimacy inside the firm. The beauty of Balaji at Deloitte is he was known quantity. People knew him and trusted him and he had the degrees of freedom to play this exploration game and then build these networks.

BRIAN KENNY: Okay. Let me ask the same question in the inverse. If I feel like I am that person that you just described and I’m listening to this podcast, how do I create that sense of urgency, create that burning platform to my leadership team so that they know we got to do this?

MICHAEL TUSHMAN: Yeah. Yeah, really great.

BRIAN KENNY: This is what I call a cold call, Mike. I’m putting you on the hot seat.

MICHAEL TUSHMAN: Yeah. Yeah, no, this is a great, great question. For those explorers who have a potentially great idea, and again, ideation and incubation circa 2022, I think is relatively easy to do. It’s relatively easy to get ideas, it’s relatively easy to incubate either inside a firm or outside a firm. It’s really hard to pivot to scale whether you’re an entrepreneur on your own or an entrepreneur inside the firm.

MICHAEL TUSHMAN: So, to me, it’s the, of the Balajis of the world, the possible set of corporate explorers, can you find an organization that has the cash, the willingness, and has the identity of playing multiple games well simultaneously? They’re comfortable with today, but they’re really, really uncomfortable with the uncertainty of tomorrow and therefore they want to create it. If I can find those kinds of leaders in incumbent firms, those are the ones I want to work with if I’m a corporate explorer. If I can’t find them, I’ll stick on my own.

BRIAN KENNY: Mike, this has been a great conversation. I can’t let you go without asking one more question, which is, if you want our listeners to remember one thing about the “Deloitte” case and about Corporate Explorers, what would that be?

MICHAEL TUSHMAN: You cannot get to the future by doing what you have done in the past. It’s imperative that you excel in what you’re currently doing and create the future and that’s what the role of corporate explorers are. They help you create the future and to do that, it’s the structural ambidexterity, which is pretty straightforward, structure is structure, but that link to a purpose and identity that permits contradiction to exist in your organizations. That’s my sort of long-winded answer to your short question, Brian.

BRIAN KENNY: Mike Tushman, thanks so much for being here today to talk about the case.

That was Harvard Business School professor Mike Tushman – in conversation with Brian Kenny on Cold Call . Tushman is coauthor of the book Corporate Explorer: How Corporations Beat Startups at the Innovation Game.

We’ll be back next Wednesday with another hand-picked conversation about leadership from the Harvard Business Review. If you found this episode helpful, share it with your friends and colleagues, and follow our show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. While you’re there, be sure to leave us a review. When you’re ready for more podcasts, articles, case studies, books, and videos with the world’s top business and management experts, you’ll find it all at HBR.org.

This episode was produced by Anne Saini, and me, Hannah Bates. Ian Fox is our editor. Music by Coma Media. Special thanks to Maureen Hoch, Erica Truxler, Ramsey Khabbaz, Nicole Smith, Anne Bartholomew, and you – our listener. See you next week.

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June 2024 Newsletter

Congratulations to the Class of 2024!

Congratulations to all our graduates! Nearly four hundred graduates were recognized on Friday, May 17 to join nearly one thousand Master's and doctoral students who earned their degrees in August 2023, January 2024, and May 2024! May your next journeys continue to be amazing!

Coverage of Commencement

Later this summer, videos of both our diploma ceremony and Convocation (held on Wednesday, May 15) will be posted to the University's YouTube channel. If you got your picture taken by the professional photographers during Commencement,  GradImages  will be reaching out to you in the coming weeks.

Register for Summer and Fall Classes!

If you haven't yet, register now for Summer and Fall through  SIS ! Be sure to talk with your advisor and check SIS for any holds that may prevent registration.

Summer 2024 Graduation

Are you almost ready to graduate? The deadline to apply to graduate this summer is Friday, June 7. You can find graduation information with  detailed requirements here .  All final materials  are due July 19 and degrees will be awarded on August 16. Students who graduate in August will be invited to return for Commencement in May 2025.

Please note : If you applied to graduate in spring 2024 but did not complete all requirements you  must  apply again this semester.

Summer Waiver of Registration

Missed last semester's deadline to apply to graduate? If you've completed all graduation requirements, but did not meet the spring graduation deadline, you may be eligible to waive class registration for summer. Here's how: 

• Submit all final materials for your degree as  listed here , including the Waiver of Registration form (included in the downloadable file).
• International students must have the waiver of registration electronically signed by  International Student Services  (ISS).

The waiver of registration deadline is Friday, June 7. Once completed and signed please email the form along with all your other final graduation materials to your program coordinator in SGS directly or to  [email protected] .

Summer Course Withdrawal

If you are enrolled in a course this summer and need to withdraw, review the  Summer 2024 Enrollment Dates + Deadlines page  (scroll down to the Grad section) to confirm the last possible day to do so. For most classes, a withdrawal is to be done in  SIS . See the University Registrar's page on  class registration  ( start at #20 ) for instructions.

When you drop the individual course, you will receive a grade of  W  on your transcript and you will receive a 0% tuition refund. If you have more questions or are unsure whether you should drop the individual course, speak to your professor and/or advisor before making the decision to withdraw.

Changes to Tech Access After Graduating

Make sure to review  changes to your access of University technologies  after graduation so you can make plans now to ensure your work will be still available. For 180 days after the date of degree conferral, graduating students will retain access to Google Workspace (Gmail, drives, etc), Microsoft 365, Qualtrics, and GitHub. Access to Adobe products will expire on July 1. Access to CWRU's Zoom (including recordings and whiteboards) ended immediately upon graduation.

Summer English Skills Tutoring

Are you looking to improve your fluency in English? Spoken English Language Programs tutoring sessions are available this summer. Graduate students can make appointments online through  TutorTrac . You can also contact  Eric Moore  with questions.

University Holidays: Juneteenth & July 4 th

Our office and CWRU will be closed in observance of  Juneteenth  on Wednesday, June 19 and for United States Independence Day on both Thursday, July 4 and Friday, July 5. Campus closure will impact access to certain buildings, libraries, dining, and possibly shuttle schedules.

Summer Take Two Fridays

As in past years as part of  CWRU Take Two , every Friday in June and July the University will close at 3:00pm EDT including our office in Tomlinson Hall and any staff working remotely. Please plan accordingly.

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Grad life assistant needed.

Want to work in our office suite? The Office of Graduate Student Life and our Grad Studies Professional Development Center are looking for a graduate assistant to partner in the development of the graduate student community and development of programs to enhance the student experience.

Spoken English Test Administrator

The Spoken English Language Programs (SELP) in Grad Studies is looking to hire doctoral students to be test administrators beginning in July 2024 and continuing into the fall semester. Training will be given to selected student assistants. Contact SELP director Eric Moore with any questions.

Considering a Career in Teaching?

Grad students and postdocs can sign up for the non-credit  UNIV 401 Advanced Professional Development for University Teaching Seminar  this summer to provide an introduction to pedagogical skills for future faculty. The seminar meets on Tuesdays in June and July; enrollment is limited to 15 students. Register for UNIV 401 in SIS and email  [email protected]  with any questions.

Broaden Your Horizons with Fellowship Courses

Right now is a great time to consider trying something new by taking an additional course for  FREE . Fellowship Courses are a great way to expand your academic portfolio and/or something to study outside your degree program that you really enjoy.

If you are a Graduate Studies degree-seeking student in good standing, you can apply to take a Fellowship Course for no tuition cost. Check out our  Fellowship Tuition Policy and the form to submit here . ( Please note: Courses in the College of Arts & Sciences are not eligible to be taken as Fellowship Courses in the summer. )

Celebrating Vice Provost Rozek!

After more than 40 years of leadership and service at Case Western Reserve University, Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Charles Rozek is taking a much earned retirement beginning at the end of June leaving a lasting impact on the CWRU community. For two decades Chuck lead Grad Studies including founding our our annual student award ceremony, leading our Commencement diploma ceremonies, facilitating the creation of a professional development center, expanding opportunities for students, and much more. We wish Dean Rozek the best on his next chapter!

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Miller named Senior Assistant Dean for Education Projects, Executive Director CQI

Bobby Miller, MD, has been named senior assistant dean for education projects and the executive director for medical educational continuous quality improvement for the School of Medicine Columbia, interim dean Gerald Harmon, MD, has announced. Miller joins the SOMC team from Marshall University’s Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine, where he serves as vice dean for medical education. He will begin his duties in Columbia on September 1.

“The extraordinary depth and breadth of experience and talent that Dr. Miller brings to our school make him uniquely qualified in the arenas of quality improvement and medical education,” Harmon said. “His impact on the School of Medicine Columbia will be immediate and long-lasting. We welcome him to the Gamecock family.”

Miller earned both his undergraduate and Doctor of Medicine degrees from Marshall University before continuing his training with a dual internal medicine and pediatrics residency at MU, followed by a neonatal/perinatal medicine fellowship at Baylor College of Medicine. He began his career in medical education at Marshall as an assistant professor in the departments of internal medicine and pediatrics in 2001, later reaching associate and full professor roles in pediatrics.

“As we embark on this journey of growth and innovation together, I am committed to helping elevate the School of Medicine Columbia’s medical education program and fostering excellence," Miller said. "Collectively, we'll continue to shape the future of health care in the state of South Carolina by nurturing compassionate, skilled physicians who will lead with integrity and drive positive change. I find myself excited and humbled by the opportunity to join the dynamic and committed faculty and staff at the SOMC.”

Miller served as vice dean for medical education at Marshall from 2013-2022, before a one-year appointment as interim dean (2022-23). He returned to his role as vice dean in 2023. As vice dean, Miller has been a key component to the culture of the MUSOM organization, successfully strengthening student engagement. He also helped the school reach full accreditation in its most recent LCME review. In 2014, Miller launched and led a partnership with St. George’s University of London, providing clinical education opportunities for international students. More recently, he was instrumental in the development of the MUSOM Physician Assistant Program, which saw its first graduating class in April of 2023.

Other career achievements for Miller include several honors and awards, such as the Baylor College of Medicine Arnold J. Rudolph Outstanding Fellow Award, the Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine Alumni Association Alumnus of Distinction honor and the University of London, St. George’s Honorary Fellowship, among several others. Miller is currently serving a three-year term as a voting and professional member of the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), and previously served as the NICU Medical Director for Cabell Huntington Hospital for six years. He has authored and co-authored numerous peer reviewed publications and presentations, and is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Section of Perinatology, and the American Medical Association.

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2 MIT Sloan professors named to top-40-under-40 list for 2024

Jun 4, 2024

MIT Sloan professors Jacquelyn Pless and Rahul Bhui have been named as among the top business school professors under 40 years old.

They were selected for Poets&Quants’ latest  Best 40-Under-40 MBA Professors list, which is released annually in recognition of talented young professors teaching in MBA programs. The honorees are chosen based on the quality of their teaching and research.

Here’s a closer look at the two MIT Sloan honorees and their work. 

Jacquelyn Pless: the economics of environmental innovation

Pless is an assistant professor of technological innovation, entrepreneurship, and strategic management at MIT Sloan. She joined the faculty in 2019. Her research focuses on the economics of innovation, energy and environmental economics, and public economics, and she teaches a course in innovation strategy . Specifically, she explores what drives innovation for social progress, with a focus on energy and environmental innovation. One of her research studies looked at the nuances of subsidy programs for solar panels in California.

Further reading: In a paper for Nature Energy, Pless and her co-authors identified five key challenges to evaluating energy innovation policies and programs, including the primary challenge of quantifying how much innovation can be attributed directly to a program or policy as opposed to other factors.

Rahul Bhui: theories of decision-making

Bhui, who joined the faculty in 2020, is an assistant professor of marketing at MIT Sloan and a faculty affiliate of the MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society. His research combines cognitive science, computational neuroscience, and behavioral economics, and he aims to find deep unifying principles that explain both rationality and irrationality. He develops and tests theories of decision-making, and his recent work includes research on  investing errors and how exposure to blatant falsehoods increases belief in news that is merely implausible.

Further reading: In a recent paper , Bhui and his co-authors found that people are more likely to support sustainable infrastructure when shown images created by artificial intelligence of what less car-centric cities might look like.

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8 Brands Poignantly Promoting Inclusivity

By Joanna Fragopoulos     June 7, 2024    

When strategizing and ideating on campaigns, it’s important to prioritize serving your audience effectively. What are the pain-points your brand and/or products are trying to address and alleviate? Taking this human approach is an integral step in marketing more inclusively and compassionately. Below are campaigns that successfully consider their audiences authentically and inclusively.

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Google Case Study Shows Importance Of Structured Data

Google published a case study showing how structured data and optimizing URLs for crawling resulted in nearly doubling clicks from the SERPs

Google published a case study that shows how using structured data and following best practices improved discoverability and brought more search traffic. The case study was about the use of Video structured data but the insights shared are applicable across a range of content types.

The new case study is about an Indonesian publisher called Vidio.

How CDNs Can Cause Indexing Problems

One of the interesting points in the case study is about an issue related to how CDNs can link to image and video files with expiring URLs. The new documentation specifically mentions that it’s important that the CDN uses stable URLs and links to another Google documentation page that goes into more detail.

Google explains that some CDNs use quickly expiring URLs for video and thumbnail files and encourages publishers and SEOs to use just one stable URL for each video. Something interesting to note is that not only does this help Google index the files it also helps Google collect user interest signals.

This is what the documentation advises :

“Some CDNs use quickly expiring URLs for video and thumbnail files. These URLs may prevent Google from successfully indexing your videos or fetching the video files. This also makes it harder for Google to understand users’ interest in your videos over time. Use a single unique and stable URL for each video. This allows Google to discover and process the videos consistently, confirm they are still available and collect correct signals on the videos.”

Implementing The Correct Structured Data

Google highlighted the importance of using the correct structured data and validating it with Google’s structured data testing tool.

These are the results of the above work:

“Within a year of implementing VideoObject markup, Vidio saw improvements in impressions and clicks on their video pages. While the number of videos that Vidio published from Q1 2022 to Q1 2023 increased by ~30%, adding VideoObject markup made their videos eligible for display in various places on Google. This led to an increase of ~3x video impressions and close to 2x video clicks on Google Search. Vidio also used the Search Console video indexing report and performance report, which helped them to identify and fix issues for their entire platform.”

Indexing + Structured Data = More Visibility

The keys to better search performance were ensuring that Google is able to crawl the URLs, which is something that can easily be overlooked in the rush to correlate a drop in rankings to a recent algorithm update. Never rule anything out during a site audit.

Another thing the case study recommends that is important is to assure that the proper structured data is being used. Using the appropriate structured data can help make a webpage qualify for improved search visibility through one of Google’s enhanced search features like featured snippets.

Read Google’s case study:

How Vidio brought more locally relevant video-on-demand (VOD) content to Indonesian users through Google Search

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